CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM

IN SPAIN, A.D. 756-1031

BY
CHARLES REGINALD HAINES

1889
Christianity and Islam in Spain, A.D. 756-1031 By Charles Reginald Haines.

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CONTENTS
Chapter 1. The Goths In Spain
Chapter 2. The Saracens In Spain
Chapter 3. The Martyrdoms At Cordova
Chapter 4. Fanaticism Of The Martyrs
Chapter 5. Controversy Concerning The Martyrs
Chapter 6. The Muzarabes
Chapter 7. Spain Under Abdurrahman III
Chapter 8. The Muwallads
Chapter 9. Christians And Moslems Ignorant Of One Another's Creed
Chapter 10. Heresies In Spain
Chapter 11. Social Influence Of Christianity
Chapter 12. Influence Of Islam On Christianity
Appendix
 1

CHAPTER 1. THE GOTHS IN SPAIN

Just about the time when the Romans withdrew from Britain, leaving so
many of their possessions behind them, the Suevi, Alani, and Vandals, at the
invitation of Gerontius, the Roman governor of Spain, burst into that
province over the unguarded passes of the Pyrenees. 1 Close on their steps
followed the Visigoths; whose king, taking in marriage Placidia, the sister of
Honorius, was acknowledged by the helpless emperor independent ruler of
such parts of Southern Gaul and Spain as he could conquer and keep for
himself. The effeminate and luxurious provincials offered practically no
resistance to the fierce Teutons. No Arthur arose among them, as among
the warlike Britons of our own island; no Viriathus even, as in the struggle
for independence against the Roman Commonwealth. Mariana, the Spanish
historian, asserts that they preferred the rule of the barbarians. However
this may be, the various tribes that invaded the country found no serious
opposition among the Spaniards: the only fighting was between
themselves—for the spoil. Many years of warfare were necessary to decide
this important question of supremacy. Fortunately for Spain, the Vandals,
who seem to have been the fiercest horde and under the ablest leader,
rapidly forced their way southward, and, passing on to fresh conquests,
crossed the Straits of Gibraltar in 429: not, however, before they had utterly
overthrown their rivals, the Suevi, on the river Baetis, and had left an abiding
record of their brief stay in the name Andalusia.

For a time it seemed likely that the Suevi, in spite of their late crushing
defeat, would subject to themselves the whole of Spain, but under
Theodoric II. and Euric, the Visigoths definitely asserted their superiority.
Under the latter king the Gothic domination in Spain may be said to have
begun about ten years before the fall of the Western Empire. But the Goths
were as yet by no means in possession of the whole of Spain. A large part of
the south was held by imperialist troops; for, though the Western Empire
had been extinguished in 476, the Eastern emperor had succeeded by

1
"Inter barbaros pauperem libertatem quam inter Romanos tributariam sollicitudinem sustinere."—
Mariana, apud Dunham, vol i.
 2

inheritance to all the outlying provinces, which had even nominally belonged
to his rival in the West. Among these was some portion of Spain.

It was not till 570, the year in which Mohammed was born, that a king came
to the Gothic throne strong enough to crush the Suevi and to reduce the
imperialist garrisons in the South; and it was not till 622, the very year of the
Flight from Mecca, that a Gothic king, Swintila, finally drove out all the
Emperor's troops, and became king in reality of all Spain.

Scarcely had this been well done, when we perceive the first indications of
the advent of a far more terrible foe, the rumours of whose irresistible
prowess had marched before them. The dread, which the Arabs aroused
even in distant Spain as early as a century after the birth of Mohammed,
may be appreciated from the despairing lines of Julian, 2 bishop of Toledo:—

"Hei mihi! quam timeo, ne nos malus implicet error,

Demur et infandis gentibus opprobrio!
Africa plena viris bellacibus arma minatur,
Inque dies victrix gens Agarena furit."

Before giving an account of the Saracen invasion and its results, it will be
well to take a brief retrospect of the condition of Christianity in Spain under
the Gothic domination, and previous to the advent of the Moslems.

There can be no doubt that Christianity was brought very early into Spain by
the preaching, as is supposed, of St Paul himself, who is said to have made a
missionary journey through Andalusia, Valencia, and Aragon. On the other
hand, there are no grounds whatever for supposing that James, the brother
of John, ever set foot in Spain. The "invention" of his remains at Ira Flavia in
the 9th century, together with the story framed to account for their
presence in a remote corner of Spain so far from the scene of the Apostle's
martyrdom, is a fable too childish to need refutation.

The honour of first hearing the Gospel message has been claimed (but, it
seems, against probability) for Illiberis. 3 However that may be, the early
establishment of Christianity in Spain is attested by Irenæus, who appeals to

2
Migne's "Patrologie," vol. xcvi. p. 814.
3
Florez, "España Sagrada," vol. iii. pp. 361 ff.
 3

the Spanish Church as retaining the primitive doctrine. 4 The long roll of
Spanish martyrs begins in the persecution of Domitian (95 A.D.) with the
name of Eugenius, bishop of Toledo. In most of the succeeding persecutions
Spain furnished her full quota of martyrs, but she suffered most under
Diocletian (303). It was in this emperor's reign that nearly all the inhabitants
of Cæsar Augusta were treacherously slaughtered on the sole ground of
their being Christians; thus earning for their native city from the Christian
poet Prudentius, 5 the proud title of "patria sanctorum martyrum."

The persecution of Diocletian, though the fiercest, was at the same time the
last, which afflicted the Church under the Roman Empire. Diocletian indeed
proclaimed that he had blotted out the very name of Christian and abolished
their hateful superstition. This even to the Romans must have seemed an
empty boast, and the result of Diocletian's efforts only proved the truth of
the old maxim—"the blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church."

The Spanish Christians about this time6 held the first ecclesiastical council
whose acts have come down to us. This Council of Illiberis, or Elvira, was
composed of nineteen bishops and thirty-six presbyters, who passed eighty
canons.

The imperial edict of toleration was issued in 313, and in 325 was held the
first General Council of the Church under the presidency of the emperor,
Constantine, himself an avowed Christian. Within a quarter of a century of
the time when Diocletian had boasted that he had extirpated the Christian
name, it has been computed that nearly one half of the inhabitants of his
empire were Christians.

The toleration, so long clamoured for, so lately conceded, was in 341 put an
end to by the Christians themselves, and Pagan sacrifices were prohibited.
So inconsistent is the conduct of a church militant and a church triumphant!
In 388, after a brief eclipse under Julian, Christianity was formally declared
by the Senate to be the established religion of the Roman Empire.

4
Irenæus, Bk. I. ch. x. 2 (A.D. 186).
5
348-402 A.D.
6
The date is doubtful. Blunt, "Early Christianity," p. 209, places it between 314 and 325, though in a
hesitating manner. Other dates given are 300 and 305.
 4

But the security, or rather predominance, thus suddenly acquired by the

church, resting as it did in part upon royal favour and court intrigue, did not
tend to the spiritual advancement of Christianity. Almost coincident with the
Edict of Milan was the appearance of Arianism, which, after dividing the
Church against itself for upwards of half-a-century, and almost succeeding at
one time in imposing itself on the whole Church, 7 finally under the
missionary zeal of Ulphilas found a new life among the barbarian nations
that were pressing in upon all the northern boundaries of the Empire, ready,
like eagles, to swoop down and feast upon her mighty carcase.

Most of these barbaric hordes, like the Goths and the Vandals, adopted the
semi-Arian Christianity first preached to them by Ulphilas towards the close
of the fourth century. Consequently the nations that forced their way into
Southern Gaul, and over the Pyrenees into Spain, were, nominally at least,
Christians of the Arian persuasion. The extreme importance to Spain of the
fact of their being Christians at all will be readily apprehended by
contrasting the fate of the Spanish provincials with that which befell the
Christian and Romanized Britons at the hands of our own Saxon forefathers
only half-a-century later.

Meanwhile the Church in Spain, like the Church elsewhere, freed from the
quickening and purifying influences of persecution, had lost much of its
ancient fervour. Gladiatorial shows and lascivious dances on the stage began
to be tolerated even by Christians, though they were denounced by the
more devout as incompatible with the profession of the Christian faith.

Spain also furnishes us with the first melancholy spectacle of Christian blood
shed by Christian hands. Priscillian, bishop of Avila, was led into error by his
intercourse with an Egyptian gnostic. What his error exactly was is not very
clear, but it seems to have comprised some of the erroneous doctrines
attributed to Manes and Sabellius. In 380, the new heresy, with which two
other bishops besides Priscillian became infected, was condemned at a
council held at Saragoza, and by another held five years later at Bordeaux.
Priscillian himself and six other persons were executed with tortures at the

7
At the Council of Rimini in 360. "Ingemuit totus orbis," says Jerome, "et Arianum se esse miratus est."
 5

instigation of Ithacius, 8 bishop of Sossuba, and Idacius, bishop of Merida, in

spite of the protests of Martin of Tours and others. The heresy itself,
however, was not thus stamped out, and continued in Spain until long after
the Gothic conquest.

There is some reason for supposing that at the time of the Gothic invasion
Spain was still in great part Pagan, and that it continued to be so during the
whole period of Gothic domination. 9 Some Pagans undoubtedly lingered on
even as late as the end of the sixth century, 10 but that there were any large
numbers of them as late as the eighth century is improbable.

Dr Dunham, who has given a clear and concise account of the Gothic
government in Spain, calls it the "most accursed that ever existed in
Europe." 11 This is too sweeping a statement, though it must be allowed that
the haughty exclusiveness of the Gothic nobles rendered their yoke
peculiarly galling, while the position of their slaves was wretched beyond all
example. However, it is not to their civil administration that we wish now to
draw attention, but rather to the relations of Church and State under a
Gothic administration which was at first Arian and subsequently orthodox.

The Government, which began with being of a thoroughly military character,

gradually tended to become a theocracy—a result due in great measure to
the institution of national councils, which were called by the king, and
attended by all the chief ecclesiastics of the realm. Many of the nobles and
high dignitaries of the State also took part in these assemblies, though they
might not vote on purely ecclesiastical matters. These councils, of which
there were nineteen in all (seventeen held at Toledo, the Gothic capital, and
two elsewhere), gradually assumed the power of ratifying the election of
the king, and of dictating his religious policy. Thus by the Sixth Council of
Toledo (canon three) it was enacted that all kings should swear "not to
suffer the exercise of any other religion than the Catholic, and to vigorously
enforce the law against all dissentients, especially against that accursed

8
See Milman, "Latin Christianity," vol. iii. p. 60.
9
Dozy, ii. 44, quotes in support of this the second canon of the Sixteenth Council of Toledo.
10
Mason, a bishop of Merida, was said to have baptized a Pagan as late as this.
11
Dunham's "Hist. of Spain," vol. i. p. 210.
 6

people the Jews." The fact of the monarchy becoming elective 12 no doubt
contributed a good deal to throwing the power into the hands of the clergy.

Dr Dunham remarks that these councils tended to make the bishops

subservient to the court, but surely the evidence points the other way. On
the whole it was the king that lost power, though no doubt as a
compensation he gained somewhat more authority over Church matters. He
could, for instance, issue temporary regulations with regard to Church
discipline. Witiza, one of the last of the Gothic kings, seems even to have
authorized, or at least encouraged, the marriage of his clergy. 13 The king
could preside in cases of appeal in purely ecclesiastical affairs; and we know
that Recared I. (587-601) and Sisebert (612-621) did in fact exercise this right.
He also gained the power of nominating and translating bishops; but it is not
clear when this privilege was first conceded to the king. 14 The Fourth Council
of Toledo (633) enacted that a bishop should be elected by the clergy and
people of his city, and that his election should be approved by the
metropolitan and synod of his province: while the Twelfth Council, held
forty-eight years later, evidently recognizes the validity of their appointment
by royal warrant alone. Some have referred this innovation back to the
despotic rule of Theodoric the Ostrogoth, at the beginning of the sixth
century; others to the sudden accumulation of vacant sees on the fall of
Arianism in Spain. Another important power possessed by the kings was
that of convoking these national councils, and confirming their acts.

The sudden surrender of their Arianism by the Gothic king and nobles is a
noticeable phenomenon. All the barbarian races that invaded Spain at the
beginning of the fifth century were inoculated with the Arian heresy. Of
these the Vandals carried their Arianism, which proved to be of a very
persecuting type, into Africa. The Suevi, into which nation the Alani, under
the pressure of a common enemy, had soon been absorbed, gave up their
Arianism for the orthodox faith about 560. The Visigoths, however,
remained Arians until a somewhat later period—until 589 namely, when

12
In 531 A.D.
13
Monk of Silo, sec. 14, who follows Sebastian of Salamanca; Robertson, iii. 6. We learn from the "Chron.
Sil," sec. 27, that Fruela (757-768) forbade the marriage of clergy. But these accounts of Witiza's reign are
all open to suspicion.
14
Robertson, "Hist. of Christian Church," vol. iii. p. 183.
 7

Recared I., the son of Leovigild, held a national council and solemnly abjured
the creed of his forefathers, his example being followed by many of his
nobles and bishops.

The Visigoths, while they remained Arian, were on the whole remarkably
tolerant 15 towards both Jews and Catholics, though we have instances to
the contrary in the cases of Euric and Leovigild, who are said to have
persecuted the orthodox party. The latter king, indeed, who was naturally of
a mild and forgiving temper, was forced into harsh measures by the unfilial
and traitorous conduct of his son Ermenegild. If the latter had been content
to avow his conversion to orthodoxy without entering into a treasonable
rebellion in concert with the Suevi and Imperialists against his too indulgent
father, there is every reason to think that Leovigild would have taken no
measures against him. Even after a second rebellion the king offered to
spare his son's life—which was forfeit to the State—on condition that he
renounced his newly-adopted creed, and returned to the Arian fold. His
reason—a very intelligible one—no doubt was that he might put an end to
the risk of a third rebellion by separating his son effectually from the
intriguing party of Catholics. To call Ermenegild a martyr because he was put
to death under such circumstances is surely an abuse of words.

With the fall of Arianism came a large accession of bigotry to the Spanish
Church, as is sufficiently shewn by the canon above quoted from the Sixth
Council of Toledo. A subsequent law was even passed forbidding anyone
under pain of confiscation of his property and perpetual imprisonment, to
call in question the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church; the Evangelical
Institutions; the definitions of the Fathers; the decrees of the Church; and
the Sacraments. In the spirit of these enactments, severe measures were
taken against the Jews, of whom there were great numbers in Spain.
Sisebert (612-621) seems to have been the first systematic persecutor,
whose zeal, as even Isidore confesses, was "not according to
knowledge." 16 A cruel choice was given the Jews between baptism on the

15
Lecky, "Rise of Rationalism," vol. i. p. 14, note, says that the Arian Goths were intolerant; but there seem
to be insufficient grounds for the assertion.
16
Apud Florez, "Esp. Sagr.," vol. vi. p. 502, quoted by Southey, Roderic, p. 255, n. "Sisebertus, qui in initio
regni Judaeos ad fidem Christianam permovens, aemulationem quidem habuit, sed non secundum
 8

one hand, and scourging and destitution on the other. When this proved
unavailing, more stringent edicts were enforced against them. Those who
under the pressure of persecution consented to be baptised, were forced to
swear by the most solemn of oaths that they had in very truth renounced
their Jewish faith and abhorred its rites. Those who still refused to conform
were subjected to every indignity and outrage. They were obliged to have
Christian servants, and to observe Sunday and Easter. They were denied
the ius connubii and the ius honorum. Their testimony was invalid in law
courts, unless a Christian vouched for their character. Some who still held
out were even driven into exile. But this punishment could not have been
systematically carried out, for the Saracen invasion found great numbers of
Jews still in Spain. As Dozy 17 well says of the persecutors—"On le voulut
bien, mais on ne le pouvait pas."

Naturally enough, under these circumstances the Jews of Spain turned their
eyes to their co-religionists in Africa; but, the secret negotiations between
them being discovered, the persecution blazed out afresh, and the
Seventeenth Council of Toledo 18 decreed that relapsed Jews should be sold
as slaves; that their children should be forcibly taken from them; and that
they should not be allowed to marry among themselves. 19

These odious decrees against the Jews must be attributed to the dominant
influence of the clergy, who requited the help they thus received from the
secular arm by wielding the powers of anathema and excommunication
against the political enemies of the king. 20 Moreover the cordial relations
which subsisted between the Church and the State, animated as they were
by a strong spirit of independence, enabled the Spanish kings to resist the
dangerous encroachments of the Papal power, a subject which has been
more fully treated in an Appendix. 21

scientiam: potestate enim compulit, quos provocare fidei ratione oportuit. Sed, sicut est scriptum, sive per
occasionem sive per veritatem Christus annunciatur, in hoc gaudeo et gaudebo."
17
"History of Mussulmans in Spain," vol. ii. p. 26.
18
Canon 8, de damnatione Judaeorum.
19
For the further history of the Jews in Spain, see Appendix A.
20
The councils are full of denunciations aimed at the rebels against the king's authority. By the Fourth
Council (633) the deposed Swintila was excommunicated.
21
Appendix B.
 9

CHAPTER 2. THE SARACENS IN SPAIN

The Gothic domination lasted 300 years, and in that comparatively short
period we are asked by some writers to believe that the invaders quite lost
their national characteristics, and became, like the Spaniards, luxurious and
effeminate. 22 Their haughty exclusiveness, and the fact of their being Arians,
may no doubt have tended to keep them for a time separate from, and
superior to, the subject population, whom they despised as slaves, and
hated as heretics. But when the religious barrier was removed, the social
one soon followed, and so completely did the conquerors lose their
ascendency, that they even surrendered their own Teutonic tongue for the
corrupt Latin of their subjects.

But the Goths had certainly not become so degenerate as is generally

supposed. Their Saracen foes did not thus undervalue them. Musa ibn
Nosseyr, the organiser of the expedition into Spain, and the first governor of
that country under Arab rule, when asked by the Khalif Suleiman for his
opinion of the Goths, answered that "they were lords living in luxury and
abundance, but champions who did not turn their backs to the
enemy." 23 There can be no doubt that this praise was well deserved. Nor is
the comparative ease with which the country was overrun, any proof to the
contrary. For that must be attributed to wholesale treachery from one end
of the country to the other. But for this the Gothic rulers had only
themselves to blame. Their treatment of the Jews and of their slaves made
the defection of these two classes of their subjects inevitable.

The old Spanish chroniclers represent the fall of the Gothic kingdom as the
direct vengeance of Heaven for the sins of successive kings;24 but on the
heads of the clergy, even more than of the king, rests the guilt of their

22
Cardonne's "History of Spain," vol. i. p. 62. "Bien différens des leurs ancêtres étoient alors énervés par les
plaisirs, la douceur du climat; le luxe et les richesses avoient amolli leur courage et corrompu les moeurs."
Cp. Dunham, vol. i. 157.
23
Al Makkari, vol. i. p. 297. (De Gayangos' translation).
24
"Chron. Sil.," sec. 17, "recesserat ab Hispania manus Domini ob inveteratam regum malitiam." See above,
p. 7, note 2.
 10

iniquitous and suicidal policy towards the Arians 25 and the Jews. The
treachery of Julian, 26 whatever its cause, opened a way for the Arabs into
the country by betraying into their hands Ceuta, the key of the Straits.
Success in their first serious battle was secured to them by the opportune
desertion from the enemy's ranks of the disaffected political party under the
sons of the late king Witiza, 27 and an archbishop Oppas, who afterwards
apostatized; while the rapid subjugation of the whole country was aided and
assured by the hosts of ill-used slaves who flocked to the Saracen standards,
and by the Jews 28 who hailed the Arabs as fellow-Shemites and deliverers
from the hated yoke of the uncircumcised Goths.

Yet in spite of all these disadvantages the Goths made a brave stand—as
brave, indeed, as our Saxon forefathers against the Normans. The first
decisive battle in the South 29 lasted, as some writers have declared, six
whole days, and the Arabs were at one time on the point of being driven
into the sea. This is apparent from Tarik's address to his soldiers in the heat
of battle: "Moslems, conquerors of Africa, whither would you fly? The sea is
behind you, and the foe in front. There is no help for you save in your own
right hands 30 and the favour of God." Nor must we lay any stress on the
disparity of forces on either side, amounting to five to one, for a large
proportion of Roderic's army was disaffected. It is probable that only the
Goths made a determined stand; and even after such a crushing defeat as
they received at Guadalete, and after the loss of their king, the Gothic
nobles still offered a stubborn resistance in Merida, Cordova, and
elsewhere. 31 One of them, Theodomir, after defending himself manfully in
Murcia for some time, at last by his valour and address contrived to secure

25
Arianism lingered on till the middle of the eighth century at least, since Rodrigo of Toledo, iii., sec. 3, says
of Alfonso I., that he "extirpavit haeresin Arianam."
26
For Julian, or, more correctly, Ilyan, see De Gayangos' note to Al Makkari, i. p. 537, etc.
27
Called Ghittishah by the Arabs. For the Witizan party see "Sebast. Salan," sec. 7; "Chron. Sil.," sec. 15. The
daughter of Witiza married a noble Arab. The descendants of the King, under the name Witizani, were
known in Spain till the end of the eighth century at least. See Letter of Beatus and Etherius to Elipandus,
sec. 61; "Multi hodie ab ipso rege sumunt nomen Witizani, etiam pauperes." See also Al Makkari, ii. 14.
28
The Jews garrisoned the taken towns (Al Makkari, i. pp. 280, 282, and De Gayangos' note, p. 531). Even as
late as 852 we find the Jews betraying Barcelona to the Moors, who slew nearly all the Christians.
29
Generally called the battle of Guadalete (Wada Lek, see De Gayangos on Al Makk. i. pp. 524, 527), fought
either near Xeres or Medina Sidonia.
30
"Una salus victis nullam sperare salutem." See Al Makk. i. p. 271; Conde i. p. 57 (Bohn's Translation).
31
We must not forget also that the mild and politic conduct of the Saracens towards the towns that
surrendered, even after resistance, marvellously facilitated their conquest.
 11

for himself, and even to hand down to his successor Athanagild, a semi-
independent rule over that part of Spain.

But the great proof that the Goths had not lost all their ancient hardihood
and nobleness, is afforded by the fact that, when they had been driven into
the mountains of the North and West, they seem to have begun at once to
organize a fresh resistance against the invaders. The thirty 32 wretched
barbarians, whom the Arabs thought it unnecessary to pursue into their
native fastnesses, soon showed that they had power to sting; and the
handful of patriots, who in the cave of Covadonga gathered round Pelayo, a
scion of the old Gothic line, soon swelled into an army, and the army into a
nation. Within six years of the death of Roderic had begun that onward
march of the new Spanish monarchy, which, with the exception of a
disastrous twenty-five years at the close of the tenth century, was not
destined to retrograde, scarcely even to halt, until it had regained every foot
of ground that had once belonged to the Gothic kings.

Let us turn for a moment to the antecedents of the Arab invaders. History
affords no parallel, whether from a religious or political point of view, to the
sudden rise of Mohammedanism and the wonderful conquests which it
made. "The electric spark 33 had indeed fallen on what seemed black
unnoticeable sand, and lo the sand proved explosive powder and blazed
heaven-high from Delhi to Granada!" Mohammed began his preaching in
609, and confined himself to persuasion till 622, the year of the Flight from
Mecca. After this a change seems to have come over his conduct, if not over
his character, and the Prophet, foregoing the peaceful and more glorious
mission of a Heaven-sent messenger, appealed to the human arbitrament of
the sword: not with any very marked success, however, the victory of Bedr
in 624 being counterbalanced by the defeat of Ohud in in the following year.
In 631, Arabia being mostly pacified, the first expedition beyond its
boundaries was undertaken under Mohammed's own leadership, but this
abortive attempt gave no indications of the astonishing successes to be
achieved in the near future. Mohammed himself died in the following year,
yet, in spite of this and the consequent revolt of almost all Arabia, within

32
Al Makk., ii. 34. "What are thirty barbarians perched upon a rock? They must inevitably die."
33
Carlyle's "Hero Worship" ad finem.
 12

two years Syria was overrun and Damascus taken. Persia, which had
contended for centuries on equal terms with Rome, was overthrown in a
single campaign. In 637 Jerusalem fell, and the sacred soil of Palestine
passed under the yoke of the Saracens. Within three years Alexandria and
the rich valley of the Nile were the prize of Amru and his army. The conquest
of Egypt only formed the stepping-stone to the reduction of Africa, and the
victorious Moslems did not pause in their career until they reached the
Atlantic Ocean, and Akbah, 34 riding his horse into the sea, sighed for more
worlds to conquer. We may be excused perhaps for thinking that it had
been well for the inhabitants of the New World, if Fortune had delivered
them into the hands of the generous Arabs rather than to the cruel soldiery
of Cortes and Pizarro.

In 688, that is, in a little more than a generation from the death of
Mohammed, the Moslems undertook the siege of Constantinople.
Fortunately for the cause of civilisation and of Christendom, this long siege
of several years proved unsuccessful, as well as a second attack in 717. But
by the latter date the footing in Europe, which the valour of the Byzantines
denied them, had already been gained by the expedition into Spain under
Tarik in 711. The same year that witnessed the crossing of the Straits of
Gibraltar in the West saw also in the East the passage of the Oxus by the
eager warriors of Islam.

There seems to be some ground for supposing that the Saracens had
attacked Spain even before the time of Tarik. As early as 648, or only one
year after the invasion of Africa, an expedition is said to have been made
into that country under Abdullah ibn Sa'd, 35 which resulted in the temporary
subjugation of the southern provinces. A second inroad is mentioned by
Abulfeda 36 as having taken place in Othman's reign (644-656); while for an
incursion in the reign of Wamba (671-680) we have the authority of the
Spanish historians, Isidore of Beja and Sebastian of Salamanca, the former of
whom adds the fact that the Saracens were invited in by Erviga, who
afterwards succeeded Wamba on the throne—a story which seems likely

34
Cardonne, i. p. 37; Gibbon, vi. 348, note.
35
See De Gayangos' note on Al Makkari, i. p. 382.
36
"Annales Moslemici," i. p. 262.
 13

enough when read in the light of the subsequent treason of Julian. These
earlier attacks, however, seem to have been mere raids, undertaken without
an immediate view to permanent conquest.

By way of retaliation, or with a commendable foresight, the Goths sent help

to Carthage when besieged by the Arabs in 695; and, while Julian their
general still remained true to his allegiance, they beat off the Saracens from
Ceuta. But on the surrender of that fortress the Arabs were enabled to send
across the Straits a small reconnoitring detachment of five hundred men
under Tarif abu Zarah, 37 a Berber. This took place in October 710; but the
actual invasion did not occur till April 30, 711, when 12,000 men landed under
Tarik ibn Zeyad. There seems to have been a preliminary engagement before
the decisive one of Gaudalete (July 19th-26th)—the Gothic general in the
former being stated variously to have been Theodomir, 38 Sancho, 39 or
Edeco. 40

It will not be necessary to pursue the history of the conquest in detail. It is

enough to say that in three years almost all Spain and part of Southern Gaul
were added to the Saracen empire. But the Arabs made the fatal
mistake 41 of leaving a remnant of their enemies unconquered in the
mountains of Asturia, and hardly had the wave of conquest swept over the
country, than it began slowly but surely to recede. The year 733 witnessed
the high-water mark of Arab extension in the West, and Christian Gaul was
never afterwards seriously threatened with the calamity of a Mohammedan
domination.

The period of forty-five years which elapsed between the conquest and the
establishment of the Khalifate of Cordova was a period of disorder, almost
amounting to anarchy, throughout Spain. This state of things was one
eminently favourable to the growth and consolidation of the infant state
which was arising among the mountains of the Northwest. In that corner of

37
The names of Tarif ibn Malik abu Zarah and Tarik ibn Zeyad have been confused by all the careless writers
on Spanish history—e.g., Conde, Dunham, Yonge, Southey, etc.; but Gibbon, Freeman, etc., of course do
not fall into this error. For Tarif's names see De Gayangos, Al Makk., i. pp. 517, 519; and for Tarik's see "Ibn
Abd el Hakem," Jones' translation, note 10.
38
Al Makk., i. 268; Isidore: Conde, i. 55.
39
Cardonne, i. 75.
40
Dr Dunham.
41
Al Makkari, ii. 34.
 14

the land, which alone 42 was not polluted by the presence of Moslem
masters, were gathered all those proud spirits who could not brook
subjection and valued freedom above all earthly possessions. 43 Here all the
various nationalities that had from time to time borne rule in Spain,

"Punic and Roman Kelt and Goth and Greek," 44

all the various classes, nobles, freemen, and slaves, were gradually welded
by the strong pressure of a common calamity into one compact and
homogeneous whole. 45 Meanwhile what was the condition of those
Christians who preferred to live in their own homes, but under the Moslem
yoke? It must be confessed that they might have fared much worse; and the
conciliatory policy pursued by the Arabs no doubt contributed largely to the
facility of the conquest. The first conqueror, Tarik ibn Zeyad, was a man of
remarkable generosity and clemency, and his conduct fully justified the
proud boast which he uttered when arraigned on false charges before the
Sultan Suleiman. 46 "Ask the true believers," he said, "ask also the Christians,
what the conduct of Tarik has been in Africa and in Spain. Let them say if
they have ever found him cowardly, covetous, or cruel."

The terms granted to such towns as surrendered generally contained the

following provisions: that the citizens should give up all their horses and
arms; that they might, if they chose, depart, leaving their property; that
those who remained should, on payment of a small tribute, be permitted to
follow their own religion, for which purposes certain churches were to be
left standing; that they should have their own judges, and enjoy (within
limits) their own laws. In some cases the riches of the churches were also
surrendered, as at Merida, 47 and hostages given. But conditions even better

42
According to Sebastian of Salamanca, the Moors had never been admitted into any town of Biscay
before 870.
43
Prescott, "Ferdinand and Isabella," seems to think that only the lower orders remained under the Moors.
Yet in a note he mentions a remark of Zurita's to the contrary (page 3).
44
Southey, "Roderick," Canto IV.
45
Thierry, "Dix Ans d'Études Historiques," p. 346. "Reserrés dans ce coin de terre, devenu pour eux toute la
patrie, Goths et Romains, vainqueurs et vaincus, étrangers et indigènes, maîtres et esclaves, tous unis dans
le même malheur ... furent égaux dans cet exil." Yet there were revolts in every reign. Fruela I. (757-768),
revolt of Biscay and Galicia: Aurelio (768-774), revolt of slaves and freedmen, see "Chron. Albeld.," vi. sec.
4, and Rodrigo, iii. c. 5, in pristinam servitutem redacti sunt: Silo (774-783), Galician revolt: also revolts in
reigns of Alfonso I., Ramiro I. See Prescott, "Ferd. and Isab.," p. 4.
46
Or his predecessor, Welid, for the point is not determined.
47
Conde i. p. 69. This was perhaps due to Musa's notorious avarice.
 15

than these were obtained from Abdulaziz, son of Musa, by Theodomir in

Murcia. The original document has been preserved by the Arab historians,
and is well worthy of transcription:

"In the name of God the Clement and Merciful! Abdulaziz and Tadmir make
this treaty of peace—may God confirm and protect it! Tadmir shall retain the
command over his own people, but over no other people among those of
his faith. There shall be no wars between his subjects and those of the
Arabs, nor shall the children or women of his people be led captive. They
shall not be disturbed in the exercise of their religion: their churches shall
not be burnt, nor shall any services be demanded from them, or obligations
be laid upon them—those expressed in this treaty alone excepted.... Tadmir
shall not receive our enemies, nor fail in fidelity to us, and he shall not
conceal whatever hostile purposes he may know to exist against us. His
nobles and himself shall pay a tribute of a dinar 48 each year, with four
measures of wheat and four of barley; of mead, vinegar, honey, and oil each
four measures. All the vassals of Tadmir, and every man subject to tax, shall
pay the half of these imposts." 49

These favourable terms were due in part to the address of Theodomir, 50 and
partly perhaps to Abdulaziz's own partiality for the Christians, which was
also manifested in his marriage with Egilona, the widow of King Roderic, and
the deference which he paid to her. This predilection for the Christians
brought the son of Musa into ill favour with the Arabs, and he was
assassinated in 716. 51

On the whole it may be said that the Saracen conquest was accomplished
with wonderfully little bloodshed, and with few or none of those atrocities
which generally characterize the subjugation of a whole people by men of
an alien race and an alien creed. It cannot, however, be denied that the only
contemporary Christian chronicler is at variance on this point with all the
Arab accounts.

48
Somewhat less than ten shillings.
49
Al Makkari, i. 281: Conde, i. p. 76.
50
Isidore, sec, 38, says of him: "Fuit scripturarum amator, eloquentia mirificus, in proeliis expeditus, qui et
apud Amir Almumenin prudentior inter ceteros inventus, utiliter est honoratus."
51
Al Makkari, ii. p. 30. He was even accused of entering into treasonable correspondence with the
Christians of Galicia; of forming a project for the massacre of Moslems; of being himself a Christian, etc.
 16

"Who," says Isidore of Beja, "can describe such horrors! If every limb in my
body became a tongue, even then would human nature fail in depicting this
wholesale ruin of Spain, all its countless and immeasurable woes. But that
the reader may hear in brief the whole story of sorrow—not to speak of all
the disastrous ills which in innumerable ages past from Adam even till now
in various states and regions of the earth a cruel and foul foe has caused to a
fair world—whatever Troy in Homer's tale endured, whatever Jerusalem
suffered that the prophets' words might come to pass, whatever Babylon
underwent that the Scripture might be fulfilled—all this, and more, has
Spain experienced—Spain once full of delights, but now of misery, once so
exalted in glory, but now brought low in shame and dishonour." 52

This is evidently mere rhapsody, of the same character as the ravings of the
British monk Gildas, though far less justified as it seems by the actual facts.
Rodrigo of Toledo, following Isidore after an interval of 500 years, improves
upon him by entering into details, which being in many particulars
demonstrably false, may in others be reasonably looked upon with suspicion
as exaggerated, if not entirely imaginary. His words are: Children are dashed
on the ground, young men beheaded, their fathers fall in battle, the old men
are massacred, the women reserved for greater misfortune; every cathedral
burnt or destroyed, the national substance plundered, oaths and treaties
uniformly broken. 53

To appreciate the mildness and generosity of the Arabs, we need only

compare their conquest of Spain with the conquest of England by the
Saxons, the Danes, and even by the Christian Normans. The comparison will
be all in favour of the Arabs. It is not impossible that, if the invaders had
been Franks instead of Moors, the country would have suffered even more,
as we can see from the actual results effected by the invasion of Charles the
Great in 777. Placed as they were between the devil and the deep sea, the
Spaniards would perhaps have preferred (had the choice been theirs) to be
subject to the Saracens rather than to the Franks. 54

52
Cp. also Isidore, sec 36. Dunham, ii. p. 121, note, curiously remarks: "Both Isidore and Roderic may
exaggerate, but the exaggeration proves the fact."
53
Dunham, ii. p. 121, note.
54
Dozy, ii. p. 41, note, quotes Ermold Nigel on Barcelona: "Urbs erat interea Francorum inhospita turnis,
Maurorum votis adsociata magis."
 17

To the down-trodden slaves, who were very numerous all through Spain, the
Moslems came in the character of deliverers. A slave had only to pronounce
the simple formula: "There is no God but God, and Mohammed is his
Prophet": and he was immediately free. To the Jews the Moslems brought
toleration, nay, even influence and power. In fact, since the fall of Jerusalem
in 588 B.C. the Jews had never enjoyed such independence and influence as
in Spain during the domination of the Arabs. Their genius being thus allowed
free scope, they disputed the supremacy in literature and the arts with the
Arabs themselves.

Many of the earlier governors of Spain were harsh and even cruel in their
administration, but it was to Moslems and Christians alike. 55 Some indeed
increased the tribute laid upon the Christians; but it must be remembered
that this tribute 56 was in the first instance very light, and therefore an
increase was not felt severely as an oppression. Moreover, there were not
wanting some rulers who upheld the cause of the Christians against illegal
exactions. Among these was Abdurrahman al Ghafeki (May-Aug. 721, and
731-732), of whom an Arab writer says: 57 "He did equal justice to Moslem and
Christian ... he restored to the Christians such churches as had been taken
from them in contravention of the stipulated treaties; but on the other hand
he caused all those to be demolished, which had been erected by the
connivance of interested governors." Similarly of his successor Anbasah ibn
Sohaym Alkelbi (721-726), we find it recorded 58 that "he rendered equal
justice to every man, making no distinction between Mussulman and
Christian, or between Christian and Jew." Anbasah was followed by Yahya
ibn Salmah (March-Sept. 726), who is described as injudiciously severe, and
dreaded for his extreme rigour by Moslems as well as Christians. 59 Isidore
says that he made the Arabs give back to the Christians the property
unlawfully taken from them. 60 Similar praise is awarded to Okbah ibn ulhejaj

55
E.g., Alhorr ibn Abdurrahman (717-719); see Isidore, sec. 44, and Conde, i. 94: "He oppressed all alike, the
Christians, those who had newly embraced Islam, and the oldest of the Moslemah families."
56
Merely a small poll-tax (jizyah) at first.
57
Conde, i. 105.
58
Conde, i. p. 99. Isidore, however, sec. 52, says: "Vectigalia Christianis duplicata exagitat."
59
Conde, i. 102.
60
Isidore, sec. 54. Terribilis potestator fere triennio crudelis exaestuat, atque aeri ingenio Hispaniae
Sarracenos et Mauros pro pacificis rebus olim ablatis exagitat, atque Christianis plura restaurat.
 18

Asseluli (734-740). 61 Yet though many of the Ameers of Spain were just and
upright men, no permanent policy could be carried out with regard to the
relations between Moslems and Christians, while the Ameers were so
constantly changing, being sometimes elected by the army, but oftener
appointed by the Khalif, or by his lieutenant, the governor of Africa for the
time being. This perpetual shifting of rulers would in itself have been fatal to
the settlement of the country, had it not been brought to an end by the
election of Abdurrahman ibn Muawiyah as the Khalif of Spain, and the
establishment of his dynasty on the throne, in May 756. But even after this
important step was taken, the causes which threatened to make anarchy
perpetual, were still at work in Spain. Chief among these were the feuds of
the Arab tribes, and the jealousy between Berbers and Arabs.

Most of the first conquerors of the country were Berbers, while such Arabs
as came in with them belonged mostly to the Maadite or Beladi
faction. 62 The Berbers, besides being looked down upon as new converts,
were also regarded as Nonconformists 63 by the pure Arabs, and
consequently a quarrel was not long in breaking out between the two
parties.

As early as 718 the Berbers in Aragon and Catalonia rose against the Arabs
under a Jew named Khaulan, who was put to death the following year. In
726 they revolted again, crying that they who had conquered the country
alone had claims to the spoil. 64 This formidable rising was only put down by
the Arabs making common cause against it. But the continual disturbances
in Africa kept alive the flame of discontent in Spain, and the great Berber
rebellion against the Arab yoke in Africa was a signal for a similar
determined attempt in Spain. 65 The reinforcements which the Khalif, Yezid

61
Conde, i. 114, 115.
62
The two chief branches of Arabs were (1) Descendants of Modhar, son of Negus, son of Maad, son of
Adnan. To this clan belonged the Mecca and Medina Arabs, and the Umeyyade family. They were also
called Kaysites, Febrites, and Beladi Arabs. (2) Descendants of Kahtan (Joktan), among whom were
reckoned the Kelbites and the Yemenites. These were most numerous in Andalus; see Al Makkari, ii. 24.
63
Dozy, iii. 124. See Al Makk., ii. 409, De Gayangos' note. Though nominally Moslem, they still kept their
Jewish or Pagan rites.
64
See De Gayangos, Al Makk. ii. 410, note. He quotes Borbon's "Karta," xiv. sq. Stanley Lane-Poole, "Moors
in Spain," p. 55, says, Monousa, who married the daughter of Eudes, was a leader of the Berbers. Conde, i.
106, says, Othman abi Neza was the leader, but Othman an ibn abi Nesah was Ameer of Spain in 728.
65
Al Makkari, ii. 40.
 19

ibn Abdulmalik, sent to Africa under Kolthum ibn Iyadh were defeated by
the Berbers under a chief named Meysarah, and shut up in Ceuta.

Meanwhile in Spain, Abdalmalik ibn Kattan 66 Alfehri taking up the cause of

the Berbers, procured the deposition of Okbah ibn ulhejaj in his own favour,
but, this done, broke with his new allies. He was then compelled to ask the
help of the Syrian Arabs, who were cooped up in Ceuta, though previously
he had turned a deaf ear to their entreaties that they might cross over into
Spain.

The Syrians gladly accepted this invitation, and under Balj ibn Besher,
nephew of Kolthum, crossed the Straits, readily promising at the same time
to return to Africa when the Spanish Berbers were overcome. This desirable
end accomplished, however, they refused to keep to their agreement, and
Abdalmalik soon found himself driven to seek anew the alliance of the
Berbers and also of the Andalusian Arabs against his late allies. 67 But the
latter proved too strong for the Ameer, who was defeated and killed by the
Yemenite followers of Balj.

These feuds of Yemenites against Modharites, complicated by the accession

of Berbers now to one side, now to the other, continued without
intermission till the first Khalif of Cordova, Abdurrahman ibn Muawiyah,
established his power all over Spain.

The successor of Balj and Thaleba ibn Salamah did indeed try to break up the
Syrian faction by separating them. He placed those of Damascus in Elvira; of
Emesa in Seville; of Kenesrin in Jaen; of Alurdan 68 in Malaga and Regio; of
Palestine in Sidonia or Xeres; of Egypt in Murcia; of Wasit in Cabra; and they
thus became merged into the body of Andalusian Arabs.

These Berber wars had an important influence on the future of Spain; for,
since the Berbers had settled on all the Northern and Western marches,
when they were decimated by civil war, and many of the survivors

66
Cardonne, i. p. 135.
67
The Syrian Arabs seem to have borne a bad character away from home. The Sultan Muawiyah warned his
son that they altered for the worse when abroad. See Ockley's "Saracens."
68
I.e., Jordan. See Al Makkari, i. 356, De Gayangos' note.
 20

compelled to return to Africa, 69 owing to the famine which afflicted the

country from 750 to 755, the frontiers of the Arab dominion were left
practically denuded of defenders, 70 and the Christians at once advanced
their boundaries to the Douro, leaving however a strip of desert land as a
barrier between them and the Moslems. This debateable land they did not
occupy till fifty years later. 71

69
Dozy, iii. 24.
70
Al Makkari, ii. 69.
71
When they built a series of fortresses as Zarnora, Simancas, San Estevan.
 21

CHAPTER 3. THE MARTYRDOMS AT CORDOVA

Abdurrahman Ibn Muawiyah landed in Spain with 750 Berber horsemen in

May 756. The Khalifate of Cordova may be said to begin with this date,
though it was many years before the new sultan had settled his power on a
firm basis, or was recognised as ruler by the whole of Moslem Spain.

During the forty-five years of civil warfare which intervened between the
invasion of Tarik and the landing of Abdurrahman, we have very little
knowledge of what the Christians were doing. The Arab historians are too
busy recounting the feuds of their own tribes to pay any particular attention
to the subject Christians. But we may gather that the latter were, on the
whole, fairly content with their new servitude. 72 The Moslems were not very
anxious to proselytize, as the conversion of the Spaniards meant a serious
diminution of the tribute. 73 Those Christians who did apostatize—and we
may believe that they were chiefly slaves—at once took up a position of
legal, though not social, equality with the other Moslems. It is no wonder
that the slaves became Mohammedans, for, apart from their hatred for their
masters, and the obvious temporal advantage of embracing Islam, the
majority of them knew nothing at all about Christianity. 74 The ranks of the
converts were recruited from time to time by those who went over to Islam
to avoid paying the poll-tax, or even to escape the payment of some penalty
inflicted by the Christian courts. 75 One thing is noticeable. In the early years
of the conquest there was none of that bitterness displayed between the
adherents of the rival creeds, to which we are so accustomed in later times.
Isidore of Beja, the only contemporary Christian authority, though he
rhapsodizes about the devastations committed by the conquerors, and
complains of enormous tributes exacted, yet speaks more fairly about the

72
This was not so when the fierce Almoravides and fiercer Almohades overran Spain in the eleventh and
twelfth centuries. See Freeman's "Saracens," p. 168.
73
As happened in Egypt under Amru. See Cardonne, i. p. 168, and Gibbon, vi. p. 370.
74
Dozy, ii. 45, quotes a passage from Pedraca, "Histor. Eccles. of Granada" (1638), in which the author
points out that even in his day the "old Christians" of Central Spain were so wholly ignorant of all Christian
doctrines that they might be expected to renounce Christianity with the utmost ease if again subjected to
the Moors.
75
Samson, "Apolog.," ii. cc. 3, 5.
 22

Moslems 76 than any other Spanish writer before the fourteenth century. "If
he hates the conquerors," says Dozy, 77 "he hates them rather as men of
another race than of another creed;" and the marriage of Abdulaziz and
Egilona awakens in his mind no sentiment of horror.

On the whole the condition of the mass of the people, Christian or

renegade, was certainly preferable to their state before the
conquest. 78 Those serfs who remained Christian, if they worked on State
lands, payed one-third of the produce to the State; if on private lands, four-
fifths to their Arab owners. The free Christians retained their goods, and
could even alienate their lands. They paid a graduated tax varying from
thirteen pounds to three guineas. In all probability the Christians under
Moslem rule were not worse off than their coreligionists in Galicia and Leon.
A signal proof of this is afforded by the fact that, in spite of the distracted
state of the country, which would seem to hold out a great hope of success,
we hear of no attempts at revolt on the part of the subjected Christians in
the eighth century, except at Beja, where the Christians seem to have been
led away by the ambition of an Arab chief. They were even somewhat
indifferent to the cause of their coreligionists in the North, and the attempts
which Pelayo and his successors made to induce them to rise in concert with
their brethren met with but scant success.

There can be no doubt, however, that the good understanding, which at

first existed between the Moslems and their Christian subjects, gradually
gave place to a very different state of things, owing in no small degree to
the free Christians in the North, whose presence on their borders was a
continual menace to the Moslem dominion, and a perpetual incentive to the
subject Christians to rise and assert their freedom.

Our purpose now is to trace out, so far as the scanty indications scattered in
the writers of the time will allow, the relations that existed between the two
religions during the 275 years of the Khalifate, and the influence which these

76
Speaking of Omar, the second Khalif of that name, Isidore, sec. 46, says, "Tanta ei sanctimonia ascribitur
quanta nulli unquam ex Arabum gente."
77
Dozy, ii. p. 42.
78
See especially Conde, Pref. p. vi.
 23

relations had upon the development of the one and the other. It will be
agreeable to the natural arrangement to take the former question first.

With a view to the better understanding of the position of Christianity and

Mohammedanism at the very beginning of our inquiry, we have thought it
advisable to point out in a preliminary sketch the development of
Christianity in Spain previous to the period when the Moslems, fresh from
their native deserts of Arabia and Africa, bearing the sword in one hand and
the Koran in the other, possessed themselves of one of the fairest provinces
of Christendom. This having been already done, we can at once proceed to
investigate the mutual relations of Christianity and Mohammedanism in
Spain during the 300 years of the Khalifate of Cordova.

It was in fulfilment of a supposed prophecy of Mohammed's, and in

obedience to the precepts of the Koran itself, that the Arabs, having
overrun Syria, Egypt, and Africa, passed over into Spain, and the war from
the very first took the character of a jehad, or religious war—a character
which it retained with the ever-increasing fanaticism of the combatants until
every Mohammedan had been forced to abjure his creed, or been driven out
of Spain. But, as we have seen, the conquest itself was singularly free from
any outbursts of religious frenzy; though of course there must have been
many Christians, who laid down their lives in defence of all that was near
and dear to them, in defence of their wives and their children, their homes
and their country, their religion and their honour. One such instance at least
has been recorded by the Arab historians, 79 when the Governor, and 400 of
the garrison, of Cordova, after three months' siege in the church of St
George, chose rather to be burnt in their hold than surrender upon
condition either of embracing Islam, or paying tribute.

Omitting the story of the fabulous martyr Nicolaus, as being a tissue of

errors and absurdities, the first martyr properly so called was a certain
bishop, named Anambad, who was put to death by Othman ibn abi Nesah

79
Al Makkari, i. 279, says: "This was the cause of the spot being called ever since the Kenisatu-l-haraki (the
church of the burnt), as likewise of the great veneration in which it has always been held by the Christians,
on account of the courage and endurance displayed in the cause of their religion by those who died in it."
 24

(727-728)—a governor guilty of shedding much Christian blood, if Isidore is

to be believed. 80

Fifteen years later a Christian named Peter, pursuing very much the same
tactics as the pseudo-martyrs in the next century, brought about his own
condemnation and death. He held a responsible post under Government,
that of receiver of public imposts, and seems to have stood on terms of
friendship with many of the Arab nobles. Perhaps he had been rather lax in
his religious observances, or even disguised his Christianity from motives of
interest. However, he fell sick, and thinking that his life was near its end, he
called together his Moslem friends, and thanking them for showing their
concern for him by coming, he proceeded, "But I desire you to be witnesses
of this my last will. Whosoever believeth not on the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Ghost, the Consubstantial Trinity, is blind in heart, and deserveth
eternal punishment, as also doth Mohammed, your false prophet, the
forerunner of Antichrist. Renounce, therefore, these fables, I conjure you
this day, and let heaven and earth witness between us." Though greatly
incensed, as was natural, the hearers resolved to take no notice of these and
other like words, charitably supposing the sick man to be light-headed; but
Peter, having unexpectedly recovered, repeated his former condemnation
of Mohammed, cursing him, his book, and his followers. Thereupon he was
executed, and we cannot be altogether surprised at it. 81

Besides these two isolated cases of martyrdom, we do not find any more
recorded until the reign of Abdurrahman II. (May 822-Aug. 852). In the
second year of this king's reign, two Christians, John and Adulphus, making
public profession of their faith, and denouncing Mohammed, were put to
death on Sept 17, 824. 82

This is the first definite indication we have that the toleration shown by the
Moslems was beginning to be abused by their Christian subjects; and there

80
Isidore, sec. 58, "Munuza quia a sanguine Christianorum, quen ibidem innocentem fuderat, nimium erat
crapulatus, et Anabadi, illustris episcopi,.... quem ipse cremaverat, valde exhaustus," etc. It is doubtful who
this Munuza was, but probably Othman ibn abi Nesah, Governor of Spain.
81
We give the account as Fleury, v. 88 (Bk. 42), gives it, but with great doubts as to its genuineness, no
other writer that we have seen mentioning it.
82
Florez, x. 358: Fleury, v. 487. They were buried in St Cyprian's Church, Cordova. See "De translatione
martyrum Georgii etc.," sec. 7.
 25

can be no reasonable doubt that this ill-advised conduct on the part of the
latter was the main cause of the so-called persecution which followed. But
besides this fanaticism on the part of a small section of the subject
Christians, there were other causes at work calculated to produce friction
between the two peoples. During the century which had elapsed since the
conquest, the Christians and Mohammedans, living side by side under the
same government, and one which, considering the times in which it arose,
was remarkable no less for its equity and moderation than for its external
splendour and magnificence, had gradually been drawn closer together.
Intermarriages had become frequent among them; 83 and these proved the
fruitful cause of religious dissensions. Accordingly we find that the religious
troubles in the reigns of Abdurrahman II. (822-852) and Mohammed I. (852-
886) began with the execution of two children of mixed parents. Nunilo and
Alodia were the children of a Moslem father and a Christian mother. Their
father was a tolerant man, and, apparently, while he lived, permitted his
children to profess the faith of their mother. On his death, the mother
married again, and the new husband, being a bigoted Mohammedan, and
actuated, as we may suppose, by the odio vitrici, immediately set about
reclaiming his step-children to the true faith of Islam, his efforts in this
direction leading him to ill-treat, even to torture, 84 the young confessors.
His utmost endeavour to effect their conversion failing, he delivered them
over to the judge on the charge of apostasy, and the judge to the
executioner, by whom they were beheaded on Oct. 21, 840. 85

Though there were some cases of martyrdom of this character, where the
sufferers truly earned their title of martyrs,—and we may believe that all
such cases have not been recorded—yet the vast majority of those which
followed in the years 851-860 were of a different type. They were due to an
outbreak of fanatical zeal on the part of a certain section of the Christians
such as to overpower the spirit of toleration, which the Moslem authorities
had so far shown in dealing with their Christian subjects, and to raise a
corresponding tide of bigotry in the less enlightened, and therefore more

83
Due in part no doubt to the marriage of captives. See also below for "the maiden tribute," pp. 96, 97.
84
So Miss Yonge.
85
This date is given by Morales, apud Migne, vol. cxv. p. 886, and by Fleury, v. 487, who accuse Eulogius,
"Mem. Sanct.," ii. c. 10, of being in error when he assigns the date 851. The Pseudo-Luitprand gives 951,
vouching for this date as an eye-witness: "Me vivente, in castro Wergeti, id est Castellon, etc."
 26

intolerant, masses of the Mohammedans. The sudden mania for martyrdom

which manifested itself at this time is certainly the most remarkable
phenomenon of the kind that has been recorded in the annals of the
Christian Church. There had been occasional instances before of Christians
voluntarily offering themselves to undergo the penalty of the laws for the
crime of being Christians. One such instance in the case of a Phrygian,
named Quintus, had caused grave scandal to the Church of Smyrna; for,
having gone before the proconsul and professed himself ready to die for the
faith, when the reality of the death, which he courted, had been brought
home to him by the sight of the wild beasts ready to rend him, the courage
of the Phrygian had failed, and he had offered incense to the gods. Africa
also had had her self-accused martyrs.

But the Spanish confessors have an interest over and above these, both by
reason of their number and the constancy which they displayed in their self-
imposed task. Not a single instance is recorded, though there may have
been some such, where the would-be martyr from fear or any other cause
forwent his crown. Moreover these martyrdoms, by dividing the Church on
the question of their merit, whether, that is, the victims were to be ranked
as true martyrs or not, and, giving rise to a written controversy on the
subject, has supplied us with ample, if rather one-sided, materials for
estimating the provocation given, and received, on either side.

As time went on, and the Christians and Moslems mingled more closely
together in political and social life, the Church no doubt suffered some
deterioration. Every interested motive was enlisted in favour of dropping as
far as possible out of sight those distinctive features of Christianity which
might be calculated to give offence to the Moslems; of conforming to all
those Mohammedan customs, which are not in the Bible expressly
forbidden to a Christian; 86 and, generally, of emphasizing the points on
which Christianity agrees with Mohammedanism, and ignoring those (far
more important ones) in which they differ. The Moslems had no such reason
for dissembling their convictions, or modifying their tenets. Consequently a
spiritual paralysis was creeping upon the Church, which threatened in the
course of time, if not checked, to destroy the very life of Christianity

86
E.g., circumcision.
 27

throughout the peninsula. The case of Africa, from which Islam had
extirpated Christianity, showed that this was no imaginary danger. But Spain
had this advantage over Africa: it contained a free Christian community
which had never passed under the Moslem yoke, where the fire of
Christianity, in danger of being swept away by the devouring flames of
Mohammedanism, might be nursed and cherished, till it could again blaze
forth with its former brilliancy.

Yet in Mohammedan Spain religious fervour was not wholly vanished: it was
still to be found among the clergy, and specially among the dwellers in
convents. Monks and nuns, severed from all worldly influences, in the
silence of their cloisters, would read the lives of the Saints of old, and
meditate upon their glorious deeds, and the miracles which their faith had
wrought. They would brood over such texts as, "Ye shall be brought before
rulers and kings for My sake;" and, "Every one who shall confess Me before
men, him will I also confess before My Father, which is in Heaven;" till they
brought themselves to believe that it was their imperative duty to bring
themselves before rulers and kings, and not only to confess Christ, but to
revile Mohammed.

However, the reproach of fanatical self-destruction will not apply, as the

apologists of their doings have not failed to point out, to the first two
victims that suffered in this persecution.

Perfectus, a priest of Cordova, who had been brought up in the school

attached to the church of St Acislus, on going out one day to purchase some
necessaries for domestic use, was stopped by some of the Moslems in the
street, and asked to give his opinion of their Prophet. What led them to
make this strange request, we are not told, but stated thus barely it certainly
gives us the impression that it was intended to bring the priest into trouble.
For it was a well-known law in Moslem countries that if any one cursed a
Mohammedan, he was to be scourged, if he struck him, killed: the latter
penalty also awaiting any one who spoke evil of Mohammed, and extending
even to a Mussulman ruler, if he heard the blasphemy without taking notice
of it. Perfectus, therefore, being aware of this law, gave a cautious answer,
declining to comply with their request until they swore that he should
receive no hurt in consequence of what he might say. On their giving the
 28

required stipulation, he quoted the words, "For there shall arise false Christs
and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; insomuch that
if it were possible they shall deceive the very elect," and proceeded to speak
of Mohammed in the usual fashion, as a lying impostor and a dissolute
adulterer, concluding with the words, "Thus hath he, the encourager of all
lewdness, and the wallower in his own filthy lusts, delivered you all over to
the indulgence of an everlasting sensuality." This ill-advised abuse of one,
whom the Moslems revere as we revere Christ, and the ungenerous
advantage taken of the oath, which they had made, naturally incensed his
hearers to an almost uncontrollable degree. They respected their promise,
however, and refrained from laying hands on him at that time, with the
intention, says Eulogius, of revenging themselves on a future occasion.

If this was so, the opportunity soon presented itself, and Perfectus, being
abroad on an errand similar to the previous one, was met by his former
interrogators, who, on the charge of reviling Mohammed, and doing despite
to their religion, dragged him before the Kadi. Being questioned, his courage
at first failed him, and he withdrew his words. He was then imprisoned to
await further examination at the end of the month, which happened to be
the Ramadhan or fast month. In prison the priest repented his weakness,
and when brought again before the judge on the Mohammedan Easter, he
recanted his recantation, adding, "I have cursed and do curse your prophet,
a messenger not of God, but of Satan, a dealer in witchcraft, an adulterer,
and a liar." He was immediately led off for execution, but before his death
prophesied that of the King's minister, Nazar, within a year of his own. He
was beheaded on April 18, 850. 87 The apologists, on insufficient evidence,
describe the death of two Moslems, who were drowned the same day in the
river, as a manifest judgement of Heaven for the murder of Perfectus.

The example set by Perfectus did not bear fruit at once, but no doubt the
evidence which it gave of the ease and comparative painlessness, with
which a martyr's crown could be obtained, was not lost upon the brooding

87
Johannes Vasaeus places this persecution (by a manifest error) in 950, under Abdurrahman III., stating at
the same time that some writers placed it in 850, but, as it appeared to him, wrongly: "Abdurrahman
Halihatan rex Cordobae movit duodecimam persecutionem in Christianos."
 29

and zealous spirits living in solitary retreats and trying by a life of religious
devotion to cut themselves off from the seductive pleasures of an active life.

The next victim, a little more than a year later, was a petty tradesman,
named John, who does not seem to have courted his own fate. He had
aroused the animosity of his Moslem rivals by a habit which he had
contracted of pronouncing the name of the Prophet in his market
transactions, taking his name, as they thought, in vain, and with a view to
attracting buyers. John, being taxed with this, with ill-timed pleasantry
retorted, "Cursed be he who wishes to name your Prophet." He was haled
before the Kadi, and, after receiving 400 stripes, was thrown into prison.
Subsequently he was taken thence and driven through the city riding
backwards on an ass, while a crier was sent before him through the Christian
quarters, proclaiming: "Such shall be the punishment of those, that speak
evil of the Prophet of God."

So far we have had cases, where the charge of persecution, brought by the
apologists of the martyrs against the Moslems, can be more or less
sustained, but the next instance is of a different character. Isaac, 88 a monk
of Tabanos, and descended from noble and wealthy ancestors, was born in
824, and by his knowledge of Arabic, attained in early life to the position of
an exceptor, or scribe, 89 but gave up his appointment at the age of twenty,
in order to enter the monastery of Tabanos, which his uncle and aunt,
Jeremiah and Elizabeth, had founded near Cordova.

Roused by the tale of Perfectus' death and John's sufferings, he voluntarily

went before the Kadi, and, pretending to be an "enquirer," begged him to
expound to him the doctrines of Islam. The Kadi, congratulating himself on
the prospect of such a promising convert, gravely complied; when Isaac,
answering him in fluent Arabic, said: "He has lied unto you—may the curse
of Heaven consume him!—who full of all wickedness has led astray so many
men, and doomed them with himself to the lowest deep of hell. Filled with
Satan, and practising Satanic arts, he hath given his followers a drink of

88
Eulog., "Mem. Sanct.," ii. ch. ii. sec. 1, also Pref., secs. 2 ff. After his death Isaac was credited with having
performed miracles from his earliest years. He was said to have spoken three times in his mother's womb
(cp. a similar fable about Jesus in the Koran, c. iii. verse 40), and when a child, to have embraced, unhurt, a
globe of fire from Heaven.
89
Not, as Florez, a tax-gatherer.
 30

deadly wine, and will without doubt expiate his guilt with everlasting
damnation." Hearing these, and other like chaste utterances, the judge
listened in a sort of stupor of rage and astonishment, feelings which even
found vent in tears; till, his indignation passing all control, he struck the
monk in the face, who then said, "Dost thou strike that which is made in the
image of God?" The assessors of the Kadi also reproached him for striking a
prisoner, their law being that one who is worthy of death should not suffer
other indignities. The Kadi, having now recovered his self-command, gave
his decision, that Isaac, whether drunk or mad, had committed a crime
which, by an express law of Mohammed's, merited condign punishment. He
was accordingly beheaded, and, his body being burnt, his ashes were cast
into the river (June 3, 851). This was done to prevent the Christians from
carrying off his body, and preserving it for the purpose of working
miracles. 90

Isaac's conduct and fate, Eulogius tells us, electrified the people, who were
amazed at the newness of the thing. It was at this point that Eulogius himself
began to shew his sympathy with these fanatical doings by encouraging and
helping others to follow Isaac's example.

The number of misguided men and women that now came forward and
threw their lives away is certainly remarkable, and seems to have struck the
Moslems as perfectly unaccountable. The Arabs themselves were as brave
men as the world has ever seen, and, by the very ordinances of their faith,
were bound to adventure their lives for their religion in actual human
conflict with infidel foes, yet they were unable to conceive how any man in
his senses could willingly deprive himself of life in such a way as could do no
service to the cause, religious or other, which he had at heart. They were
quite unable to appreciate that intense antagonism towards the world and
its perilous environment, which Christianity teaches; that spirit of
renouncement of the vanities, nay, even of the duties of life, which
prompted men and women to immure themselves in cloisters and retreats,
far from all spheres of human usefulness. Life under these circumstances
had naturally little to make it worth the living, and became all the more easy

90
Eulog., "Lib. Apolog.," sec. 35, mentions a proposed edict of the authorities, visiting the seeker of relics
with severer penalties.
 31

to relinquish, when death, in itself a thing to be desired, was further

invested with the glories of martyrdom.

The example of Isaac was therefore followed within two days by a monk
named Sanctius or Sancho, who was executed on June 5th. Three days later
were beheaded Peter, a priest of Ecija; Walabonsus, a deacon of Ilipa;
Sabinianus and Wistremundus, monks of St Zoilus; Habentius, a monk of St
Christopher's Church at Cordova; while Jeremiah, uncle of Isaac, was
scourged to death. Their bodies were burned, and the ashes cast into the
river.

Sisenandus of Badajos 91 found a similar fate on July 16th: four days

subsequently Paul, a deacon of St Zoilus, gave himself up; and the same
number of days later, Theodomir, a monk of Carmona: all of whom were
beheaded.

91
After his martyrdom he procured the release from prison of Tiberias, priest of Beja! Eulog., "Mem.
Sanct.," ii. c. vi.
 32

CHAPTER 4. FANATICISM OF THE MARTYRS

The next candidates for martyrdom were two young and beautiful girls,
whose history we learn from their patron, Eulogius, who seems to have
regarded one of these maidens, Flora, with a Platonic love mingled with a
sort of religious devotion.

Flora, the daughter of a Moslem father and a Christian mother, was born at
Cordova. She is said to have practised abstinence even in her cradle. At first
she was brought up as a Moslem, and lived in conformity with that faith,
until, being converted to Christianity about eight years before this time, and
finding the intolerance of her father and her brother unbearable, she
deserted her home. But when her brother, in his efforts to discover and
reclaim her, persecuted many Christian families, whom he suspected of
conniving at her escape, she voluntarily surrendered herself to him, saying,
"Here am I whom you seek, and for whose sake you persecute the people of
God. I am a Christian. Do your best to annul that confession: none of your
torments will be able to overcome my faith." Her brother, after trying in
vain, by alternate threats and blandishments, to bring her back from her
error, finally dragged her before the Kadi; and he, hearing her brother's
accusation, and her own confession, ordered her to be barbarously beaten,
and then given up nearly dead to her brother. She managed, however, to
recover, and escaped under angelic guidance. Shortly afterwards, while
praying in a church, she was found by Maria, sister of Walabonsus above-
mentioned, who had been martyred a few months previously. Their father,
being a Christian, converted his unbelieving wife. They came to live at
Froniano, near Cordova, and their daughter was educated at the nunnery of
Cuteclara, near the city, under the care of the abbess, Artemia. Brooding
over her brother's martyrdom, and perhaps, as was so often the case,
seeing his glorified spirit in a vision, she left the cloister, determining to
follow in his saintly footsteps. While on her way to give herself up, she
turned aside into a church to pray, and found Flora there.
 33

Together, then, did these devoted girls go forth to curse Mohammed, of

whom they probably knew next to nothing, and lose their own lives. The
judge, however, pitying their youth and beauty, merely imprisoned them.
News of his sister's imprisonment being brought to Flora's brother, he
induced the judge to make a further examination of her, and she was
brought out of prison before the Kadi, who, pointing to her brother, asked
her if she knew him. Flora answered that she did—as her brother according
to the flesh. "How is it, then," asked the judge, "that he remains a good
Moslem, while you have apostatized?" She answered that God had
enlightened her; and, on professing herself ready to repeat her former
denunciations of the Prophet, she was again remanded to prison. Here she
and Maria are threatened with being thrown upon the streets as
prostitutes 92—a punishment far worse than the easy death they had
desired. This shakes their constancy; when they find an unexpected
comforter in Eulogius himself, who is now imprisoned for being an
encourager and inciter of defiance to the laws. It is strange that he should
have been allowed to carry on in the prison itself the very work for which he
had been imprisoned. The support of Eulogius enabled these tender
maidens to stand firm through another examination, and the judge, proving
too merciful, or too good a Moslem, to carry out the above-mentioned
threat, they were led forth to die (November 24, 851). Before their death
they had promised Eulogius to intercede before the throne of God for his
release, which accordingly is brought to pass six days after their own
execution.

An interval of only a little more than a month elapsed before Gumesindus, a

priest of the district called Campania, near Cordova, and Servus Dei, a monk,
suffered death in the same way (January 13, 852).

There was now a pause for six months in the race for martyrdom, and it
seemed as if the Church had come to its right mind upon this subject. This,
however, was far from being the case. Hitherto the victims had been almost
92
Ibid., sec. 13, and Eulog., "Doc. Mart.," sec. 4. Eulogius tried to lessen the terror of this threat by pointing
out that "non polluit mentem aliena corruptio, quam non foedat propria delectatis,"—a poor consolation,
but the only one! He does not seem to have known—or surely he would have quoted it—the express
injunction of the Koran (xxiv. verse 35):—"Compel not your maidservants to prostitute themselves, if they
be willing to live chastely ... but, if any shall compel them thereto, verily God will be gracious and merciful
unto such women after their compulsion."
 34

without exception priests, monks, and nuns; but the next martyrs afford us
instances of married couples claiming a share in this doubtful honour. These
were Aurelius, son of a Moslem father and a Christian mother, and his wife
Sabigotha (or Nathalia), the daughter of Moslem parents, whose father
dying, her mother married a Christian and was converted; and Felix and his
wife Liliosa. It would seem that with all the harm that was done by this
outbreak of fanaticism, some good was also effected in awaking the
worldly-minded adherents of Christianity from the spiritual torpor into
which they were sinking; for these new martyrs were of the class of
hidden Christians, who were now shamed into avowing their real
creed. 93 Yet surely it had been far better if they had been content to live like
Christians instead of dying like suicides. In their case, indeed, we find no
sudden irresistible impulse driving them to defy the laws, but a slowly-
matured conviction that it was their duty, disregarding all human ties, to
give themselves up to death. In this resolution they were fortified by the
advice and encouragement of Eulogius and Alvar, the latter of whom
prudently warns Aurelius to make sure that his courage is sufficient to stand
the trial. 94 Sabigotha is persuaded to accompany her husband in his self-
destruction, her natural reluctance to leave her children being overcome by
Eulogius, 95 who recommends that they should be given over to the care of a
monastery. A seasonable vision, in which Flora and Maria appear to her,
clenches her purpose.

Meanwhile a foreign monk from Bethlehem, who, being sent on business

connected with his monastery to Africa, had crossed over in Spain, impelled
by the wild enthusiasm there prevailing, determined to offer himself as a
candidate for martyrdom with the four persons above mentioned.

They then take counsel together how they may best effect their purpose,
there being evidently enough difficulty in procuring martyrdom for
themselves to shew the statements of the apologists, that there was a
fierce persecution raging, to be at least much exaggerated, if not entirely
93
Aurelius was roused from his religious dissimulation by seeing the sufferings of John. See Eulog., "Mem.
Sanct.," ii. c. x. sec. 5.
94
This would lead us to suppose that the courage of some had failed.
95
Eulogius comments:—"O admirabilis ardor divinus, quo filiorum affectus respuitur!" The parents not only
desert their children, but give away most of their goods to the poor, thereby making their own children of
the number.
 35

without foundation. The plan decided upon, which the devisers audaciously
attributed to the suggestion of God, was that the women should go forth
unveiled and with hurried steps to the church, in the hope that such an
unwonted sight would direct attention to them, and occasion the arrest of
the whole number. It fell out as desired, and they were all brought before
the judge, and interrogated with the usual result, except that the judge on
this occasion dismissed them with scornful anger. But George, disappointed
at his untoward clemency, as they were being led away broke out with, "Can
you not go down to hell without seeking to drag us also thither as your
companions?"

This incoherent abuse naturally incensed the soldiers, as it was no doubt

intended that it should. Accordingly the prisoners were dragged again
before the Kadi, who asked them in a mild tone of remonstrance, why they
had abandoned the faith of Islam, and refused to live, promising them at the
same time great rewards, if they would become Moslems again. On their
refusal they were remanded for two days, which seemed a very long time,
so eager were they to die. They pass the time with singing hymns, and are
blessed with visits of angels and miraculous signs. Their chains drop off, and
the gaolers dare not again bind those whom Christ Himself had loosed. The
authorities, now as ever, anxious if possible to avoid extreme penalties,
determine to release George, because they had not themselves heard his
blasphemy. He baulks their merciful intention by repeating his words on the
spot, and he is accordingly led forth and beheaded with the others (July 27,
852).

Within a month Christopher, a monk of Rojana, and of Arab lineage, and

Leovigild, a monk of Fraga, both being places near Cordova, are executed
for the same offence and in the same manner, their dead bodies being
nailed to stakes. While taking the air in his palace, the king saw these bodies,
and ordered them to be burnt, and the ashes scattered in the river. The
same night Abdurrahman II. was struck down with apoplexy, and the
martyrs' friends hailed it as a manifest judgment from Heaven.

He was succeeded by Mohammed I. (852-886), a less capable and more

bigoted ruler than his father. No sooner was he on the throne than Emila, a
deacon, and Jeremiah a priest of St Cyprian's church, near Cordova,
 36

following in the footsteps of so many predecessors, came before the Kadi,

and reviled Mohammed,—the former being enabled to do this with the
more point and effect, as he was to a remarkable degree master of the
Arabic language. 96 Emila and Jeremiah won the prize they coveted, and
were put to death (September 15, 852). The customary prodigy occurred
after the execution, in describing which the pious Eulogius breaks into
metre, saying, "Athletas cecidisse pios elementa fatentur."

On the following day occurred an outrage which the most bigoted partizans
of the martyrs must have blushed to record. Two eunuchs, Rogel, a monk of
Parapanda, near Elvira, and Servio Deo, a eunuch of foreign extraction,
forced their way into a mosque, and by way of preaching—as they said—to
the assembled worshippers, they reviled their Prophet and their
religion. Being set upon and nearly torn in pieces by the infuriated
congregation, they were rescued by the Kadi, who imprisoned them till such
time as their sentence should be declared. They were condemned to have
their hands and feet cut off, and be beheaded; which sentence was carried
into effect.

Upon this fresh provocation the fury and apprehension of the king knew no
bounds. He might well be pardoned for thinking that this defiance of the
laws, and religious fanaticism, could only mean a widespread disaffection
and conspiracy against the Moslem rule. In fact, as we shall see, the
Christians of Toledo raised the banner of revolt in favour of their Cordovan
brethren at this very time. Mohammed therefore seems to have meditated a
real persecution, such as should extirpate Christianity in his dominions. He is
said even to have given orders for a general massacre of the males among
the Christians, and for the slavery, or worse, of the women, if they did not
apostatize. But the dispassionate advice of his councillors saved the king
from this crime. They pointed out that no men of any intelligence,
education, or rank among the Christians had taken part in the doings of the
zealots, and that the whole body of Christians ought not to be cut off, since
their actions were not directed by any individual leader. Other advisers seem
to have diverted the king from his project of a wholesale massacre by

96
Eulog., "Mem. Sanct," ii. c. xii. Arabic boasts a larger vocabulary of abuse than most languages: see the
account of Prof. Palmer's death in his Life by Besant.
 37

encouraging him to proceed legally against the Christians with the utmost
rigour, and by this means to cow them into submission.

These strong measures apparently produced some effect, for no other

executions are recorded for a period of nine months; when Fandila, a priest
of Tabanos, and chosen by the monks of St Salvator's monastery to be one
of their spiritual overseers, came forward and reviled the Prophet:
whereupon he was imprisoned and subsequently beheaded (June 13, 853).
His fate awakened the dormant fanaticism of Anastasius, a priest of St
Acislus' church; of Felix, a Gaetulian monk of Alcala de Henares; and of
Digna, a virgin of St Elizabeth's nunnery at Tabanos (the latter being
strengthened in her resolve by a celestial vision), who, pursuing the usual
plan, are beheaded the following day; their example being followed by
Benildis, a matron (June 15).

The cloisters of Tabanos had furnished so many fanatics that the

Government now suppressed the place, removing the nuns and shutting
them up to prevent others giving themselves up. One of these however,
Columba, sister of Elizabeth and of the abbot Martin, contrived to escape.
This Columba had persisted in remaining a virgin, in spite of her mother's
efforts to make her marry, which only ceased when the mother died. She
now gave herself up and was beheaded (September 17).

Just one month later Pomposa, from the monastery of St Salvator,

Pegnamellar, suffered the same fate. Then there was a pause in these
executions, which was not broken till July 11th of the following year, when
Abundius, a priest, was martyred. He seems to have really deserved the
name of martyr, for he was given up to the authorities by the treachery of
others, and did not seek martyrdom.

Another similar period elapsed before Amator, a priest of Tucci (Tejada);

Peter, a monk of Cordova; and Ludovic, a brother of Paul, the deacon,
beheaded four years before, shared the same fate (April 30, 855).

After nearly a year Witesindus, a repentant renegade; Elias, an old priest of

Lusitania; and Paul and Isidore, young monks, gave themselves up to
execution (April 17, 856.) In June of that year a more venerable victim was,
like Abundius, betrayed to his destruction. This was Argimirus, an old monk,
 38

once Censor of Cordova (June 28). Exactly one month later Aurea, a virgin
and sister of the brothers John and Adulphus, whose martyrdom has been
already mentioned, was brought before the magistrate. Descended from
one of the noblest Arab families, she had long been left unmolested, though
her apostasy to Christianity was well known. She was now frightened into
temporary submission; but soon repenting of her compliance, and avowing
herself truly a Christian, she gained a martyr's crown (July 29).

The next example affords a similar instance of real persecution. Ruderic, a

priest, whose brother was a Moslem, unadvisedly intervened as a
peacemaker, in a quarrel, in which his brother was engaged. With the usual
fate of peacemakers, he was set upon by both parties, and nearly killed. In
fact his brother supposed him to be quite dead, and had the body carried
through the town, proclaiming that his brother had become a Mussulman
before his death. 97 However, Ruderic recovered, and made his escape, but
being obliged to return to Cordova, met his brother, who immediately
brought him before the Kadi on a charge of apostasy. His life and liberty
were promised to him if he would only acknowledge that Christ was merely
man, and that Mohammed was the messenger of God. On refusing, he is
imprisoned, and finds in prison a certain Salomon, also charged with
apostasy from Islam. The two fellow-prisoners contract a great friendship
and are consequently separated. After a third exhortation, they are
condemned to death, but not before the judge had done his best to bribe
them to forego their purpose by offers of honour and rewards. They were
executed March 13, 857, and their bodies thrown into the river—even the
stones sprinkled with their blood being taken up and cast into the water,
lest the Christians should preserve them as relics. Ruderic's body was
washed on shore, fresh as when killed; while Salomon, not being equally
fortunate, informed a devout Christian in a vision, where his body lay in a
tamarisk thicket near the town of Nymphianum.

Hitherto the aider and abettor of these martyrdoms had himself contrived
to escape the penalty, which he had urged others to brave. Whether this
was due to any unworthy fear of death on his part is not clear, but it may
have been owing to the respect in which he was held by the Moslem

97
So the Inquisitors in Spain used to pretend that their victims had abjured their errors before being burnt.
 39

authorities. To these he was well known as a man of irreproachable

character and unaffected piety, and several Arabs of high rank, who were
his personal friends, shewed themselves anxious to screen him from the
effects of his folly. Eulogius was descended from a Senatorial family of
Cordova, and was educated at the Church of St Zoilus, where he devoted
himself to ecclesiastical studies, and soon surpassed his contemporaries in
learning. With his friend Alvar he sat at the feet of Speraindeo, an eminent
abbot in the province of Baetica. Besides a sister Anulo, Eulogius had two
brothers engaged in trade, and another brother, Joseph, who seems to have
been in government employ.

Eulogius became early noted for his practice of asceticism, and his desire for
the life of a monk, and for the glory of martyrdom. When strong measures
were taken by the authorities, in concert with Reccafredus, Bishop of
Seville, to stamp out the mania for martyrdom by threats, stripes, and
imprisonment, though many were frightened into submission, Eulogius,
Alvar tells us, remained firm, in spite of his being singled out as an "incentor
martyrum" by a certain Gomez, who was a temporising Christian in the
king's service. 98

There is no doubt that Eulogius did all he could to interfere with and check
that amalgamation of the Christians and Arabs which he saw going on round
him. Believing that such close relations between the peoples tended to the
spiritual degradation of Christianity, he set himself deliberately to embitter
those relations, and, as far as he could, to make a good understanding
impossible. To discourage the learning of Arabic by the Christians, he
brought back with him from a journey to Pampluna the classical writings of
Virgil, Horace (Satires), Juvenal, and Augustine's "De Civitate Dei."

At the time when these martyrdoms took place, Eulogius was a priest, but
for some reason he tried to abstain from officiating at the mass on the
ground that he was himself a great sinner. 99 However, his ecclesiastical

98
This man, says Alvar, sec. 6, by a divine judgment, lost his hold on the Christian faith, which he thus
scrupled not to attack. See below, p. 72.
99
He pleads his "delicti onera," ch. i. sec. 7. Perhaps he was infected with one of the "Migetian errors" of
the previous century, which was that "priests must be saints." Saul, Bishop of Cordova (850-861), in a letter
to another bishop (Florez, xi. 156-163), refers with disapproval to those (? Eulogius) who held that
 40

superior 100 (? Saul, Bishop of Cordova), soon made him take a different view
of the question by threatening him with anathema if he neglected his duty
any longer. Coming forward as a prominent champion of the extreme party
in the Church, he was imprisoned in 851, where he wrote treatises in favour
of the martyrs, and was released, as we have seen, by the intercession of
Flora and Maria on November 29th of that year.

In 858, on the death of Wistremirus, he was chosen by the votes of the

people to succeed him as Bishop of Toledo; but from some cause, perhaps
by the intervention of the Moslems, he was prevented from occupying his
see. The people then determined to have no bishop, if they might not have
him. 101 Yet, adds the pious Alvar, he got his bishopric after all, for "all holy
men are bishops, though not all bishops holy men."

In the following year he was again imprisoned as being a disturber of the

public peace, but as on a former occasion he had been allowed to support
and encourage Flora and Maria, so now was he permitted to finish in prison
a book in defence of the martyrs, which had the direct tendency of inciting
others to go and do likewise. The occasion of Eulogius' second
imprisonment was as follows:—Leocritia, a maiden of Arab extraction and
of noble birth, had been secretly baptised by Liliosa, the wife of Felix. Her
parents, learning her apostasy, cruelly ill-treated, and even beat her, in order
to make her renounce Christ. She naturally turned to Eulogius and his sister
Anulo for advice in her afflictions, expressing a wish to escape to a part of
Spain where the Christian worship was free. As a first step to this, she leaves
her parents under pretence of going to a wedding, and takes refuge with
Eulogius. Her parents, furious at her escape, get all sorts of people
imprisoned on the charge of aiding her; and she is at last betrayed and
surprised at the house of her protector. They are both dragged before the
Kadi, who asks Eulogius angrily why he persists in defying the laws in this
way. The bishop defends himself by pleading that Christian clergy are bound
to impart a knowledge of their religion, if asked, as he had been by

"sacramenta tunc esse solum modo sancta, cum sanctorum fuerint manibus praelibata;" and he quotes
Augustine and Isidore against the error.
100
Pontifex proprius.
101
Fleury, v. 547, says another bishop was elected in Eulogius' lifetime; but Alvar's words are "Alium sibi eo
vivente interdixerunt eligere."
 41

Leocritia. 102 The judge then threatens to have him scourged, but Eulogius,
preferring death to so painful and degrading a punishment, repeats the
lesson which he had taught to so many others, and reviles Mohammed. Even
so the judge shows a disposition to treat him with leniency, and he is
remanded to prison with Leocritia.

When brought up again before the royal Council, an influential friend makes
a last effort to save him, saying: "Fools and idiots rush on their own
destruction, but what induces you, a man of approved wisdom and
blameless character, in defiance of all natural instincts, to throw away your
life in this manner?" He urges Eulogius to say but one word of concession in
the hour of peril, promising that he should afterwards be free to exercise his
religion as he pleased, without let or hindrance. But the bishop could hardly
turn back now, and he rejected all such offers with the ejaculation, "If they
only knew the joy that awaits us on high!"

On his way to execution, when struck by one of the bystanders on one

cheek, he turned the other meekly to the striker. He was beheaded on
March 11, 859, and Leocritia four days later. Miraculous appearances
honoured the body of the martyred bishop, which was buried in the Church
of St Genesius, whence it was translated in the next year to his own church
of St Zoilus, and in 883 was given up, together with that of Leocritia, to
Alphonso III. (866-910) by express stipulation.

102
This kind of proselytism was not held to be a capital crime by the Moslems. See Dozy, ii. 171.
 42

CHAPTER 5. CONTROVERSY CONCERNING THE MARTYRS

With the death of Eulogius the series of voluntary martyrdoms comes to an

end, and it will be convenient at this point to consider the whole question of
the relation of the Church to the civil power, and how far those
"confessors," who were put to death under the circumstances already
related, were entitled to the name of martyrs. Unfortunately the evidence
we have on the subject is drawn almost entirely from the apologists of their
doings, and therefore may fairly be suspected of some bias. Yet even from
them can be shown conclusively enough that no real persecution was raging
in Mohammedan Spain at this time, such as to justify the extreme measures
adopted by the party of zealots.

If we except the cases of John and Adulphus, and of Nunilo and Alodia, the
date of which is doubtful, there is not a single recorded instance of a
Christian being put to death for his religion by the Arabs in Spain before the
middle of the ninth century. The Muzarabes, 103 as the Christians living under
the Arabs were called, enjoyed a remarkable degree of freedom in the
exercise of their religion—the services and rites of the Church being
conducted as heretofore. 104 In Cordova alone we find mention of the
following churches: the Church of St Acislus, a former martyr of Cordova; of
St Zoilus; of the Three Martyrs—Faustus, Januarius, Martialis; of St Cyprian;
of SS. Genesius and Eulalia; and of the Virgin Mary.

Of the last of these there is an interesting account in an Arab writer, who

died in 1034. "I once entered at night," he says, "into the principal Christian
Church. I found it all strewed with green branches of myrtle, and planted
with cypress trees. The noise of the thundering bells resounded in my ears;
the glare of the innumerable lamps dazzled my eyes; the priests, decked in
rich silken robes of gay and fanciful colours, and girt with girdle cords,

103
De Gayangos on Al Makk., i. p. 420, says the word means "those who try to imitate the Arabs in manners
and language."
104
Eulog. Letter to Alvar. After the death of Flora he says he spent the ninth hour in prayer, then "auctis
tripucliis, vespertinum, matutinum, missale sacrificium consequenter ad honorem (Dei) et gloriam
nostrarum virginum celebravimus."
 43

advanced to adore Jesus. Everyone of those present had banished mirth

from his countenance, and expelled from his mind all agreeable ideas; and if
they directed their steps towards the marble font it was merely to take sips
of water with the hollow of their hands. The priest then rose and stood
among them, and taking the wine cup in his hands prepared to consecrate it:
he applied to the liquor his parched lips, lips as dark as the dusky lips of a
beautiful maid; the fragrancy of its contents captivated his senses, but when
he had tasted the delicious liquor, the sweetness and flavour seemed to
overpower him." On leaving the church, the Arab, with true Arabian facility,
extemporized some verses to the following effect: "By the Lord of mercy!
this mansion of God is pervaded with the smell of unfermented red liquor,
so pleasant to the youth. It was to a girl that their prayers were addressed, it
was for her that they put on their gay tunics, instead of humiliating
themselves before the Almighty." Ahmed also says: "the priests, wishing us
to stay long among them, began to sing round us with their books in their
hands; every wretch presented us the palm of his withered hand (with the
holy water), but they were even like the bat, whose safety consists in his
hatred for light; offering us every attraction that their drinking of new wine,
or their eating of swine's flesh, could afford." This narrative is in many
respects very characteristic of an Arab writer, who would not feel the
incongruity of an illustration on such a theme drawn from "the lips of a
maid," or the irrelevancy of a reference to swine's flesh. But the account
merits attention on other grounds, for it shews how little even the more
intelligent Moslems understood the ceremonies of the religion which they
had conquered, though they might be pardoned for thinking that the
Christians worshipped the Virgin Mary, both because Mohammed himself
fell into the same error, and because probably the Roman Church and its
adherents had already begun to pay her idolatrous worship.

The chief church in Cordova at the conquest seems to have been the church
of St Vincent. On the taking of the town, 105 the Christians had to give up half
of it to the Arabs, a curious arrangement, but one enforced elsewhere by
the Saracens. In 784 the Christians were induced, or compelled, to sell their

105
De Gayangos on Al Makk., i. 368, says the cathedral was at first guaranteed to the Christians. Some time
later than 750 they had to surrender half of it; in 784 they were obliged to sell the other half, and in return
were allowed to rebuild the destroyed churches. For the "church of the burnt" see above, p. 29, note 1.
 44

half for 100,000 dinars, and it was pulled down to make room for the Great
Mosque. 106 In 894 we find that the Cordovans were allowed to build a new
church.

Besides these within the walls, there were ten or twelve monasteries and
churches in the immediate neighbourhood of Cordova: among them the
monastery of St Christopher, the famous one of Tabanos, suppressed as
above mentioned, in 854; those of St Felix at Froniano, of St Martin at
Royana, of the Virgin Mary at Cuteclara, of St Salvator at Pegnamellar; and
the churches of SS. Justus and Pastor, and of St Sebastian.

We have given the names of these churches and monasteries 107 at or near
Cordova, both to shew how numerous they were, and also because from
one or other of them came nearly all the self-devoted martyrs, of whom we
are about to consider the claims. Except in cases like that above-mentioned,
the Christians were not allowed to build new churches, 108 but considering
the diminution in the numbers of the Christians owing to the conquest, and
the apostasy of a great many, this could not be reckoned a great hardship.
Moreover the Christian churches, it was ordained, should be open to
Moslems as well as Christians, though during the performance of mass it
seems that they had to be kept closed. The Mosques were never to be
polluted by the step of an infidel.

The religious ferment, which manifested itself so strongly at Cordova, did

not extend to other parts of Spain. For instance, at Elvira, the cradle of
Spanish Christianity, it was shortly after the Cordovan martyrdoms (in 864)
that the mosque, founded in the year of the conquest, and left unbuilt for
150 years, was finally finished. What we hear about the Christians at Elvira at
this time is not to their credit, their bishop, Samuel, being notorious as an
evil liver. It is in Cordova that the main interest at this period centres; and to
Cordova we will for the present confine our attention.

106
This was not finished till 793. The original structure cost 80,000 dinars. Several Khalifs added to it, and
Hakem II. (961-976) alone spent on it 160,000 dinars.
107
Monasteries were established in Spain 150 years before the Saracen conquest. They mostly fared badly
at the hands of the Arabs, in spite of the injunctions of the Khalif Abubeker (see Conde, i. 37, and Gibbon),
but that of Lorban at Coimbra received a favourable charter in 734 (Fleury, v. 89; but Dunham, ii. 154,
doubts the authenticity of the charter).
108
Cp. the stipulation of Omar at the fall of Jerusalem.
 45

There is abundant evidence to show that the party of enthusiasts, both

those who offered themselves for martyrdom, and those who aided and
abetted their more impulsive brethren, were a comparatively small body in
the Church of Spain; and that their proceedings awakened little short of
dismay in the minds of the more sensible portion of the Christian
community, both in the Arab part of Spain, and perhaps in a less degree in
the free North. The chief leaders of the party of zealots—as far as we find
mention of them—were Saul, bishop of Cordova (850-861), Eulogius, and
Samson, abbot of the monastery of Pegnamellar; while Reccafredus, bishop
of Seville, and Hostegesis of Malaga, were the prominent ecclesiastics on
the other side.

Before relating what steps the latter took in conjunction with the Moslem
authorities to put down the dangerous outbreak of fanaticism, it will be
interesting to note what was the attitude of the different sections of the
Church towards the misguided men who gave themselves up to death, and
their claims to the crown of martyrdom. Those who denied the validity of
these claims, rested their contention on the grounds, that the so-called
martyrs had compassed their own destruction, there being no persecution
at the time; that they had worked no miracles in proof of their high claims;
that they had been slain by men who believed in the true God; that they had
suffered an easy and immediate death; and that their bodies had corrupted
like those of other men.

It was an abuse of words, said the party of moderation, to call these suicides
by the holy name of martyrs, when no violence in high places had forced
them to deny their faith, or interfered with their due observance of
Christianity. It was merely an act of ostentatious pride—and pride was the
root of all evil—to court danger. Such conduct had never been enjoined by
Christ, and was quite alien from the meekness and humility of His
character. 109

They might have added that such voluntary martyrdoms had been expressly
condemned,

109
Quoting such texts as Matt. v. 44, "Bless them that curse you, and pray for them that despitefully use
you:" Pet. ii. 23, "Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake."
 46

(a.) By the circular letter of the Church of Smyrna to the other churches,
describing Polycarp's martyrdom, in the terms: "We commend not those
who offer themselves of their own accord, for that is not what the gospel
teacheth us:"

(b.) By St Cyprian, 110 who, when brought before the consul and questioned,
said "our discipline forbiddeth that any should offer themselves of their own
accord;" and in his last letter he says: "Let none of you offer himself to the
pagans, it is sufficient if he speak when apprehended:"

(c.) By Clement of Alexandria: "We also blame those who rush to death, for
there are some, not of us, but only bearing the same name, who give
themselves up:"

(d.) Implicitly by the synod of Elvira, or Illiberis (circa 305), one of the canons
of which forbade him to be ranked as a martyr, who was killed on the spot
for breaking idols:

(e.) By Mensurius, bishop of Carthage, who, when consulted on the question

of reducing the immense lists of acknowledged martyrs, gave it as his
opinion that those should be first excluded who had courted
martyrdom. One bishop alone, and he a late one, Benedict XIV. of Rome, has
ventured to approve what the Church has condemned. Nor is this the only
instance in which the Roman Church has set aside the decisions of an earlier
Christendom.

The charges against the zealots were twofold, that there had been no
persecution worthy of the name, such as to justify their doings, and that
those doings themselves were contrary to the teaching and spirit of
Christianity. The latter part of the charge has already been dealt with, and
may be considered sustained. As to the other part, the apologists, it must be
confessed, answer with a very uncertain sound. Sometimes, indeed, they
deny it point-blank: "as if," says Eulogius, "the destruction of our
churches, the insults heaped upon our clergy, the monthly tax which we
pay, the perils of a hard life, lived on sufferance, are nothing." These insults
and affronts are continually referred to. "No one," says the same

110
Martyred 258.
 47

author, "can go out or come in amongst us in security, no one pass a knot of

Moslems in the street without being treated with contumely. They mock at
the marks 111 of our order. They hoot at us and call us fools and vain. The very
children jeer at us, and even throw stones and potsherds at the priests. The
sound of the church-going bell 112 never fails to evoke from Moslem hearers
the foulest and most blasphemous language. They even deem it a pollution
to touch a Christian's garment." Alvar adds that the Moslems would fall to
cursing when they saw the cross; and when they witnessed a burial
according to Christian rites, would say aloud, "Shew them no mercy, O God,"
throwing stones withal at the Lord's people, and defiling their ears with the
filthiest abuse. "Yet," he indignantly exclaims, "you say that this is not a time
of persecution; nor is it, I answer, a time of apostles. But I affirm that it is a
deadly time... are we not bowed beneath the yoke of slavery, burdened with
intolerable taxes, spoiled of our goods, lashed with the scourges of their
abuse, made a byword and a proverb, aye, a spectacle to all nations?"

That there was a certain amount of social ill-treatment, and that the lower
classes of Moslems did not take any pains to conceal their dislike and scorn
of such Christian beliefs and rites as were at variance with their own creed,
and moreover regarded priests and monks with especial aversion, there can
be no doubt. But, on the other hand, there is no want of evidence to show
that the condition of the Christians was by no means so bad as the
apologists would have us suppose. Petty annoyances could not fail to exist
anywhere under such circumstances, as were actually to be found in Spain
at this time, and we may be sure that the Christian priests in particular did
not bear themselves with that humility which might have ensured a
mitigation of the annoyances. Organised opposition to Christianity, unless
the Moslem rule can itself be called such, there was none, till it was called
into being by the action of the fanatics themselves. But apart from all the
other facts which point to this conclusion, we can call the apologists

111
Stigmata.
112
Alvar, "Ind. Lum.," sec. 6, "Derisioni et contemptui inhiantes capita moventes infanda iterando
congeminant." He adds: "Daily and nightly from their minarets they revile the Lord by their invocation of
Allah and Mohammed!" Eul., "Lib. Ap.," sec. 19, confesses that hearing their call to prayer always moved
him to quote Psalm xcvi. 7: "Confounded be all they that worship carved images"—a very irrelevant
malediction, as applied to the Moslems.
 48

themselves in evidence that there was no real persecution going on at the

time of the first martyrdoms.

Eulogius admits that the Christians were not let or hindered in the free
exercise of their religion by saying that this state of things was not due to
the forbearance (forsooth!) of the Moslems, but to the Divine mercy. Alvar,
too, in a passage which seems to contradict the whole position which he is
trying to defend, says:—"Though many were the victims of persecution,
very many others—and you cannot deny it—offered themselves a voluntary
sacrifice to the Lord. Is it not clear that it was not the Arabs who began
persecuting, but we who began preaching? Read the story of the martyrs,
and you will see that they rushed voluntarily on their fate, not waiting the
bidding of persecutors, nor the snares of informers; aye, and—what is made
so strong a charge against them—that they tired out the forbearance of
their rulers and princes by insult upon insult."

As to the other part of the accusation, that voluntary martyrs were no

martyrs, Eulogius could only declaim against the Scriptures quoted by his
opponents, and refer to the morally blind, who make evil their good, and
take darkness to be their light; while he brought forward a saying of certain
wise men that "those martyrs will hold the first rank in the heavenly
companies who have gone to their death unsummoned." 113

He also sought to defend the practice of reviling Mohammed by the plea

that exorcism was allowed against the devil, which is sufficiently ridiculous;
but Alvar goes further, and calmly assures us that these insults and revilings
of the prophet were merely a form of preaching to the poor benighted
Moslems, naïvely remarking that the Scriptures affirm that the Gospel of
Christ must be preached to all nations. Whereas, then, the Moslems had not
been preached to, these martyred saints had taken upon themselves the
sacred duty of rendering them "debtors to the faith."

The second count against the martyrs was that they had worked no
miracles—a serious deficiency in an age when miracles were almost the test
of sanctity. Eulogius could only meet the charge by admitting the fact, but

113
Eul., "Mem. Sanct.," i. sec. 24. Taken from some "Acts of the Saints," probably those of SS. Emetherius
and Caledonius—a book obviously of no authority.
 49

adding that miracles were frequent in the early ages, in order to establish
Christianity on a firm basis; and that the constancy of the martyrs was in
itself a miracle (which was true, but not to the point). Had he been content
with this, he had done wisely; but he goes on: "Moreover, miracles are no
sign of truth, as even the unbelievers can work them." Now, by trying to
show why these martyrs did not perform any miracles, he admits by
implication that they were deficient in this particular; and yet in other parts
of his work he mentions miracles performed by these very martyrs, as, for
instance, by Isaac, and by Flora, and Maria. So that the worthy priest is
placed in this dilemma: If miracles are really no sign of truth, why attribute
them to the martyrs, when, as is allowed elsewhere, they were unable to
work them? if, on the other hand, they did perform these miracles, why not
adduce them in evidence against the detractors?

The third objection is a curious one, that the martyrs were not put to death
by idolaters, but by men worshipping God and acknowledging a divine
law, and therefore were not true martyrs. Eulogius misses the true answer,
which is obvious enough, and scornfully exclaims:—"As if they could be said
to believe in God, who persecute His Church, and deem it hateful to believe
in a Christ who was very God and very man."

Fourthly, the martyrs died a quick and easy death. But, as Eulogius points
out, pain and torture give no additional claim to the martyr's crown.

Lastly, it was objected that the bodies of these martyrs, as indeed was to be
expected, corrupted, and were even, in some cases, devoured by dogs.
"What matter," says Eulogius, "since their souls are borne away to celestial
mansions."

But it was not objections brought by fellow-Christians only that Eulogius

took upon himself to answer, but also the taunts and scoffs of the Moslems.
"Why," said they, "if your God is the true God, does He not strike terror into
the executioners of his saints by some great prodigy? and why do not the
martyrs themselves flash forth into miracles while the crowd is round them?
You rush upon your own destruction, and yet you work no wonders that
might induce us to change our opinion of your creed, thereby doing your
own side no good, and ours no harm."
 50

Yet the constancy of the martyrs affected the Moslems more than they
cared to confess, as we may infer from the taunts levelled at the Christians,
when, in Mohammed's reign, some Christians, from fear of death, even
apostatized. "Whither," they triumphantly asked, "has that bravery of your
martyrs vanished? What has become of the rash frenzy with which they
courted death?" Yet though they affected to consider the martyrs as fools
or madmen, they could not be blind to the effect that their constancy was
likely to produce on those who beheld their death, and to the reverence
with which their relics were regarded by the Christians. They therefore
expressly forbade the bodies of martyrs to be preserved 114 and worshipped,
and did their best to make this in certain cases impossible by burning the
corpses and scattering the ashes on the river, though sometimes they
contented themselves with throwing the bodies, unburnt, into the stream.

However, in spite of these regulations, many bodies were secretly carried

off and entombed in churches, where they were looked upon as the most
precious of possessions; and martyrs, who, by the admission of their
admirers themselves, had never worked any miracles when living, were
enabled, when dead, to perform a series of extraordinary ones, which did
not finally cease till modern enlightenment had dissipated the darkness of
the Middle Ages.

We happen to possess a very interesting account of the circumstances

under which the relics of three of these Cordovan martyrs were transferred
from the troubled scene of their passion to the more peaceful and more
superstitious cloisters of France.

It was in 858 that Hilduin, the abbot of the monastery of St Vincent and the
Holy Cross, near Paris, learning that the body of their patron saint, St
Vincent, was at Valencia, sent two monks, Usuard and Odilard, with the
king's 115 permission, to procure the precious relics for their own monastery.

114
See "De Translatione corporum Sanctorum Martyrum," etc., sec. 11. "Non enim, quos martyres faciunt,
venerari Saraceni permittunt." See above, p. 38. The bodies of earlier martyrs were more freely given up at
the request of the Christians. See "Chron. Silen.," secs. 95-100; Dozy, iv. 119, for the surrender of the body
of Justus; and Eul., "Ad Wiliesindum," sec. 9, where Eulogius mentions that he had taken the bodies of
Saints Zoilus and Austus to Pampluna. Later, Hakem II. (961-976) gave up the body of the boy Pelagius at
Ramiro III.'s request. Mariana, viii. 5.
115
Charles the Bald.
 51

On their way to perform this commission, the monks learnt that the body
was no longer at Valencia. It had been, in fact, carried 116 by a monk named
Andaldus to Saragoza. Senior, the bishop of that city, had seized it, and it
was still held in veneration there, but under the name of St Marinus, whose
body the monk had stoutly asserted it to be. Senior apparently doubted the
statement, and tortured Andaldus to get the truth out of him, but in vain;
for the monk, knowing that St Vincent had been deacon of Saragoza, feared
that the bishop would never surrender the body if aware of its identity.
However, Usuard and Odilard knew not but that the body was that of
Marinus, as stated.

Disappointed, therefore, in their errand, they lingered about at Barcelona,

thinking to pick up some other relics, when a friend, holding a high position
in that town, Sunifridus by name, mentioned the persecution at Cordova,
news of which does not seem to have travelled beyond Spain. They
determine at once to go to Cordova, relying on a friend there, named
Leovigild, to help them to obtain what they wished. Travelling in Spain,
however, seems to have been by no means safe 117 at this period, and their
bold resolution is regarded with fear and admiration by their friends. The
lord of the Gothic marches, Hunifrid, being on friendly terms with the Wali of
Saragoza, writes to him on their behalf, and he entrusts them to the care of
a caravan which chanced to be just starting for Cordova.

On reaching Cordova, after many days, they go to St Cyprian's Church,

where lay the bodies of John and Adulphus. The rumour of their arrival
brings Leovigild (called Abad Salomes), who proves a very useful friend, and
Samson, who just at this juncture is made abbot of the monastery at
Pegnamellar, where the bodies of George, Aurelius, and Sabigotha were
buried—the very relics which they had decided to try and obtain.

The monks of the monastery naturally object to parting with such precious
possessions, but Samson contrives to get the bishop's permission to give up
the bodies.

116
"Under a divine impulse," as usual.
117
See sec. 2, and Eul., "Ad Wiliesindum," where he speaks of the road to Gaul as "stipata praedonibus," and
of all Gothia as "perturbata funeroso Wilihelmi incursu."
 52

This was all the more opportune, as a chance was now given them of
returning to Barcelona, by joining the expedition which Mohammed I. was
on the point of making against Toledo. Orders had been given that all the
inhabitants, strangers as well as citizens, except the city guard, should go
out with the King. However, the Frankish monks were met by an
unexpected difficulty. In the temporary absence of the abbot, the monks of
Pegnamellar refused to give up the relics, and it was only with much
difficulty that the bishop Saul was induced to confirm his former permission
to remove them.

The bodies were now exhumed without the knowledge of the Moslems, and
sealed with Charles' own seal, brought for that purpose. George's body was
found whole, but of the other two, only the head of Nathalia, and the trunk
of Aurelius' body. The two latter are united to form one corpse, as it is
written, "they two shall be one flesh." After a stay in Cordova of eight
weeks, they set out under the protection of some Christians serving in the
army. Leovigild, who had been away on the King's business, now returns,
and escorts them to Toledo. The approach of the army having cleared away
the brigands who infested those parts, the monks with their precious freight
got safely away to Saragoza, and returned with their booty to France, where
the relics worked numbers of astonishing miracles.

Let us return from this digression to the steps taken by the moderate party
among the Christians, and by the Moslem authorities, to put an end to what
seemed so dangerous an agitation. That Reccafredus was not the only
ecclesiastic of high position who took exception to the new movement we
learn clearly enough from Alvar, who tells us that "bishops, priests, deacons,
and 'wise men' of Cordova joined in inveighing against the new martyrdoms,
under the impulse of fear wellnigh denying the faith of Christ, if not in
words, yet by their acts." We may, therefore, conclude that the greater part
of the ecclesiastical authorities were heart and soul with the Bishop of
Seville, while the party led by Eulogius and Saul was a comparatively small
one. However, strong measures were necessary, and Reccafredus did not
hesitate to imprison several priests and clergy. Eulogius complains that the
churches were deprived of their ministers, and the customary church rites
were in abeyance, "while the spider wove her web in the deserted aisles,
 53

tenanted only by a dreadful silence." In this passage the writer doubtless

gives reins to his imagination, yet there must have been a certain amount of
truth in the main assertion, for he repeats it again and again.

The evidence of Alvar is to the same effect: "Have not those who seemed to
be columns of the church, the very rocks on which it is founded, who were
deemed the elect of God, have they not, I say, in the presence of these
Cynics, or rather of these Epicureans, under no compulsion, but of their own
free will, spoken evil of the martyrs of God? Have not the shepherds of
Christ, the teachers of the Church, bishops, abbots, priests, the chiefs of our
hierarchy, and its mighty men, publicly denounced the martyrs of our Church
as heretics?"

Not content with imprisoning the fanatics, the party of order forced them to
swear that they would not snatch at the martyr's palm by speaking evil of
the Prophet. Those who disobeyed were threatened with unheard-of
penalties, with loss of limbs, and merciless scourgings. This last statement
must be taken with reservation, at least if put into the mouth of the
Christian party under Reccafredus. It is extremely unlikely that Christian
bishops and priests should have had recourse to such treatment of their
coreligionists: yet they had a spiritual weapon ready to their hands, and they
were not slow to use it. They anathematised those who aided and abetted
the zealots; and Eulogius himself seems to have narrowly escaped their
sentence of excommunication.

This action against the zealots was in all probability taken, if not at the
instigation of the Moslem authorities, yet in close concert with them.
Eulogius attributes all the evils which had befallen the Church, such as the
imprisonment of bishops, priests, abbots, and deacons, to the wrath of the
King; and Alvar distinctly states that the King was urged, even bribed, to
take measures against the Christians. It is not likely that the King required
much persuading. Mohammed at least seems to have been thoroughly
frightened by the continued agitation against Mohammedanism. He
naturally suspected some political plot at the bottom of it; a supposition
which receives some countenance from the various references in
Eulogius to the martyrs as "Soldiers of God" bound to war against His
Moslem enemies; and from the undoubted fact that the Christians of Toledo
 54

did rise in favour of their coreligionists at Cordova. 118 However that may be,
the King in 852 certainly took counsel with his ministers, how the agitation
should be met, and he seems to have assembled a sort of grand council 119 of
the Church, when the same question was discussed. Stronger measures
were in consequence taken, and a more rigorous imprisonment resorted to.
But Mohammed went farther than this. He deprived of their posts all
Christians, who held offices in the palace, or in connection with the Court,
and withdrew from the Christian "cadet corps," the royal bounty usually
extended to them. He ordered the destruction of all churches built since the
conquest, and of all later additions to those previously existing. He made a
severe enactment against those who reviled Mohammed. He even had in
mind to banish all Christians from his dominions. This intention, together
with the order respecting the churches, was not carried out, owing probably
to the opportune revolt at Toledo.

In one of his works on this subject, Eulogius expresses a fear lest the
intervention of the martyrs should bring disaster on the Church in Spain, just
as the intervention of Moses in Egypt did much at first to aggravate the
hardships of the Israelites. He ought not, therefore, to have been surprised,
when such a result actually did follow; nor ought he to complain that now
the Moslems would only let the Christians observe their religion in such a
way as they chose to dictate; and that the Christians were subjected to all
sorts of taxes and exactions.

These combined measures of repression, taken by the King and the Bishop
of Seville, soon produced their effect. The extreme party were broken up,
some escaping to quieter regions, others hiding, and only venturing abroad
in disguise and at night—not, as Eulogius is careful to add, from fear of
death, but because the high prize of martyrdom is not reserved for the
unworthy many, but for the worthy few.

Some even apostatized, while many of those who had applauded the
proceedings of the martyrs, now called them indiscreet, and blamed them
for indulging in a selfish desire to desert the suffering Church for an early
mansion in the skies. Others, in order to retain posts under Government, or
118
Conde, i. 249: Dozy, ii. 161, says on Eulogius' authority, that he incited them to revolt under Sindila.
119
Robertson calls it a Conciliabulum.
 55

to court favour with the King, dissembled their religion, taking care not to
pray, or make the sign of the cross in public. Eulogius himself was singled
out at the meeting of the King's Council by one of the royal secretaries,
Gomez, son of Antonian, son of Julian, as the ringleader of the new seditious
movement. This man was a very worldly-minded Christian, and was, no
doubt, at this time, in fear of losing his lucrative office at Court, which he
had obtained by his remarkable knowledge of Arabic. He did, in fact, lose his
post with all the other Christian officers of the Court, but regained it by
becoming a Moslem; and such was the ardour of the new proselyte that he
was called "the dove of the mosque."

The result of this council was, as we have seen, hostile to the party of which
Eulogius and Saul were the chiefs, but the former writer, mentioning the
actual decree that was passed, pretends that it was merely a blind to
deceive the king, and spoken figuratively; and he acknowledges that such
hypocrisy was unworthy of the prelates and officers assembled. Is it not
more reasonable to suppose that Eulogius and his supporters voted for it—
as they seem to have done—with a mental reservation, while their
opponents honestly considered such a step necessary?
 56

CHAPTER 6. THE MUZARABES

The death of Eulogius was a signal for the cessation of the dubious
martyrdoms which had for some years become so common, though the
spirit, which prompted the self-deluded victims, was by no means stifled
either in Spain or the adjoining countries. Yet the measures taken to put
down the mania for death succeeded in preventing any fresh outbreak for
some time.

Under the weak government of Abdallah (888-912) the Christians,

determining to lose their lives to better purpose than at the hands of the
executioner, rose in revolt, as will be related hereafter, in several parts of
Spain. After the battle of Aguilar, or Polei, in 891, between the Arab and
Spanish factions, 1000 of the defeated Christians were given the choice of
Islam or death, and all, save one, chose the latter alternative.

During the long reign of Abdurrahman III. (912-961) there were a few
isolated cases of martyrdom, which may as well be mentioned now. After
the great battle in the Vale of Rushes, where Abdurrahman defeated the
kings of Navarre and Leon, one of the two fighting bishops, who were taken
prisoners on that occasion, gave, as a hostage for his own release, a youth
of fourteen, named Pelagius. The king, it is said, smitten with his beauty,
wished to work his abominable will upon the boy, but his advances being
rejected with disdain, the unhappy youth was put to death with great
barbarity, refusing to save his life by apostasy. 120 A different version of the
story is given by a Saxon nun of Gaudersheim, named Hroswitha, who wrote
a poem on the subject fifty years later. She tells us that the king tried to kiss
Pelagius, who thereupon struck him in the face, and was in consequence put
to death by decapitation (June 26, 925).

In the death of Argentea (Ap. 28, 931) we have the last instance in Spain of a
Christian seeking martyrdom. She was the daughter of the great rebel Omar

120
Johannes Vasaeus ex Commentariis Resendi. Romey, iv. 257, disbelieves this version of the story.
Perhaps Al Makk., ii. 154, is referring to the same Pelagius when he mentions the king's liking for a
handsome Christian page.
 57

ibn Hafsun, 121 and his wife Columba, and was born at that chieftain's
stronghold of Bobastro. Upon her mother's death Omar wished her to take
up her mother's duties in the palace, for Omar had become a sort of king on
his own domain. She declined, asking only for a quiet retreat, where she
might prepare her soul for martyrdom; and she wrote to a devout Christian,
whose wishes inclined him in the same direction, suggesting that they
should seek the crown of martyrdom together. On the destruction of
Bobastro by Abdurrahman in 928, she went to Cordova. She there met with
a Gaul named Vulfura, who had been warned in a dream that in that city he
should find a virgin, with whom he was to suffer martyrdom. However, his
object becoming known, Vulfura is cast into prison by the governor of the
city. Argentea goes to visit him there, and is stopped by the guards, who,
finding she is a Christian, take her before the judge as a renegade, and she is
imprisoned with Vulfura. The alternative of Islam instead of death being
refused, they are both executed, but Argentea, as being an "insolens
rebellis," is first scourged with 1000 stripes, and her tongue cut out. Her
body was buried at the church of the three saints.

In the year 934 we hear of two hundred monks of Cardena being massacred
by the Berbers in Abdurrahman's army; and in some sense they can be
regarded as martyrs to their faith.

In 953 a martyr named Eugenia is said to have perished; and thirty years
later, the last martyrs of whom we have any record under the Arab rule.
Dominicus Sarracinus, son of John, and his companions taken prisoners at
the capture of Simancas, were kept for two years and a-half in prison. They
were then brought out and put to death, just when Ramiro III., or his
successor, had sent to ransom them.

There is no evidence whatever to show that there was a persecution of the

Christians under the great Abdurrahman, and the statements of those
writers who intimate the contrary may be set aside as unsupported by
evidence. 122

121
Who on becoming a Christian, took the name of Samuel. Florez, x. p. 564, ff.
122
See above, p. 36, note 1. A letter also is mentioned of John Servus Dei, Bishop of Toledo, to the
Muzarabes with regard to the late martyrdoms and apostasies, purporting to have been written in 937.
 58

We will now turn back and take a general view of the Christian Church and
its condition under the Arabs in Spain, especially—for our information is
greatest as to those periods—under the two kings Abdurrahman II. and III.

Under the former of these sovereigns the condition of the Christians, until
the persecution, which they themselves provoked, began, was very
tolerable, and the majority of the Christians were quite content with their
lot. They served in the army, both free men and slaves; they held lucrative
posts at Court, or in the houses of the Arab nobles, or as government
officials. But though the lay community was well off, the clergy and stricter
churchmen had something to complain of; for the Church could not be said
to be free, though the worship was, since the power of summoning councils
had now passed to the Arab executive, who, as we have seen, made even
Moslems and Jews sit at these councils. Sees were also put up to auction,
and the scandalous spectacle was not unknown, of atheists and heretics
holding the titles, and drawing the emoluments, of bishops.

As was to be expected, Arabic soon began to displace Latin throughout the

country, and even before the ninth century the Scriptures were translated
into the tongue of the conquerors by Odoarius, Bishop of Accita, and John
of Seville. Hischem I. (788-796) forbade the use of any language but Arabic,
so that his Christian subjects had to use Arabic Gospels; and the Spaniards
were soon not even permitted to write in Latin. Even if this statement be
doubtful, we know that Latin came gradually to be neglected and forgotten.
Alvar utters an eloquent protest against this: "Alas, the Christians are
ignorant of their own tongue, and Latins neglect their language, so that in
all the College of Christ there is scarcely to be found one who can write an
address of welcome to his brother intelligibly in Latin, while numbers can be
found competent to mouth the flowery rhetoric of the Chaldeans." In the
department of poetry—the peculiar boast of the Arabs—the Christians
seem even to have surpassed their masters; and to the rivalry of the two
nations in this art we may attribute the excellence and abundance of native
ballads of which Spain can boast.

We have seen how Eulogius did his best to check this neglect of Latin, by
introducing into Spain some of the masterpieces in that language; but it is
doubtful whether his efforts had much result. We can see from the remains
 59

of the Spanish writers which we possess that the structure of that language
had considerably degenerated in Spain.

Some sentences are so ungrammatical as to be scarcely intelligible.

Moreover, we find Samson directly accusing Hostegesis, Bishop of Malaga,
of not being able to write Latin; and similarly Jonas of Orleans (839)
accusing Claudius, Bishop of Turin, who was himself a Spaniard, of the same
defect.

The neglect of Latin was accompanied by an increasing indifference to the

doctrinal basis of Christianity, educated Christians being led to devote their
time, which might have been more profitably spent on their own Scriptures,
to becoming acquainted with the Mohammedan religion, and even to
unravelling the intricacies of the controversial theology which had grown up
round, and overlaid, the original simplicity of the Koran. The great Fathers of
the Church were laid aside unread, and even the Prophets and Apostles, and
the Gospel itself, found few to study them. While the higher classes were
indifferent to religion, the lower were sunk in poverty and ignorance. The
inevitable result of this indifference, ignorance, and poverty, was a visible
deterioration in the character of Spanish Christianity, of which there are only
too many proofs.

We find the abbot Samson distinctly accusing Hostegesis, Bishop of Malaga,

of simony, asserting that he sold the priesthood to low and unworthy
people; while Alvar charges Saul, Bishop of Cordova, with obtaining his
bishopric by bribery. Other irregularities imputed to Hostegesis were that he
held his see from his twentieth year, contrary to the canons of the church,
and that he beat priests, in order to extort money from them, till they died
under his hands.

Besides the election to the priesthood, by unworthy means, of unworthy

men, whose ignorance and impudence the congregation had to endure in
silence, many were informally ordained without vouchers for character
being given, or the assent of their fellow-clergy and flocks being
obtained. Many churches presented the unseemly spectacle of two rival
pastors, contrary to the ordinances received from the Fathers.
 60

Changes, too, were made in doctrine and ritual, for which no authority could
be alleged, in contravention of established custom and the teaching of the
Church. So far was this carried that Samson was accused by his opponents
of being a heretic and an idolator because he permitted the marriage of
cousins; dissented from the view that God was ever enclosed in the
chambers of the Virgin's heart; asserted the omnipresence of God, even in
idols and the Devil, and this in an actual, not a metaphysical, sense; and
denied that God sat upon an exalted throne above his creatures. From this it
is clear that Hostegesis and those who thought with him were infected with
the anthropomorphite heresy.

Not only did many of the clergy hold heretical views, but their depravity was
notorious. Hostegesis did not blush to spend the produce of the church
tithes and offerings, which he had with difficulty extorted from his
flock, 123 in bribing the court officials and the king's sons, giving them feasts
at which open and flagrant vice was indulged in. The clergy were not above
pretending illness in order to avoid paying the monthly tax to their Moslem
rulers. Some, even in the highest positions in the Church, denied their
Saviour and apostatized to the Moslems; one of these renegades being
Samuel, Bishop of Elvira, the uncle of Hostegesis' mother, who, with a
pervert's zeal, persecuted the Church he had deserted, imprisoning the
clergy, taxing his former flock, and even forcing some to embrace Islam.

It is not surprising, therefore, that bishops and clergy were sometimes

deposed. Samson, indeed, underwent this disgrace at the hands of a hostile
faction under Hostegesis, on the ground of his pretended heresy; and,
similarly, Valentius, 124 Bishop of Cordova, was deprived of his see because he
was a supporter of Samson. But these instances reflect more discredit on
the deposers than on their victims. Instances of deposition are not wanting,
in the free states the North. Sisenandus, seventh Bishop of Compostella
(940), was deposed by King Sancho for dissolute living, and malversation of
Church moneys. 125 On the king's death he recovered his see, driving out his

123
The offering of one-third for the Church was refused to Hostegesis as being sacrilegious; so he
proceeded to extort it, "suis codicibus institutis."—Samson "Apol.," ii. Pref. sec. 2
124
Succeeded Saul in 861, and was deposed in 864.
125
Mariana, viii. 5. He went over to the Moslems. Southey, "Chronicle of the Cid," p. 228. Yonge, p. 86.
 61

successor. Pelayo, another bishop of Compostella, suffered the same

punishment.

When the kings of Castile gradually drove back the Moors, and when
Alfonso took Toledo in 1085, his wife, Constance of Burgundy, and her
spiritual adviser, a monk named Bernard, were horrified at the laxity in
morals and doctrine of the Muzarabic Christians. Their addiction to poetry
and natural science was regarded with suspicious aversion, and the pork-
eating, circumcision, and, not least, the cleanly habits, 126 contracted from an
intercourse with Moslems, were looked upon as so many marks of the
beast. In 1209 the Crusaders, who had swarmed to the wars in Spain, even
wished to turn their pious arms against these poor Muzarabes, so
scandalised were they at the un-Romish rites. Yet we are told that Alfonso
the Great, when building and restoring churches in the territory newly
wrested from the Moors, set up again the ordinances of the Goths, as
formerly observed at Toledo.

The free church in the North had itself been in great danger of extinction,
when the armies of the great Almanzer (977-1002) swept yearly through the
Christian kingdoms like some devastating tempest. Fifty-two victorious
campaigns did that irresistible warrior lead against the infidels. 127 Barcelona,
Pampluna, and Leon fell before his arms, and the sacred city of Compostella
was sacked, and for a time left desolate, the bells of St James' shrine being
carried off to Cordova to serve as lamps in the grand mosque. We are not,
therefore, surprised to find that there were many bishops in the North who
had lost their sees; and this was the case even before the tenth century, for
a bishop named Sabaricus, being driven from his own see by the Arabs, was
given that of Mindumetum by Alfonso III. in 867, and twenty years later a
bishop named Sebastian received the see of Auria in the same way.

It is natural enough that the Moslems and the clergy of the Christian Church
should be hostile to one another, but it is surprising to find—as we do find in
some cases—the latter making common cause with the Arabs in ill-treating

126
The Christians in the North were vulgarly supposed by the Arabs not to wash. See Conde, i. 203—"It is
related of these people of Galicia ... that they live like savages or wild beasts, and never wash either their
persons or their garments."
127
He was not defeated in his last battle, as is generally stated in histories.—See Al Makkari, ii. 197.
 62

their fellow-countrymen and coreligionists. Thus, as we have seen,

Hostegesis, relying on the support of the secular arm, beat and imprisoned
the clergy for withholding from him the Church tithes, dragging them
through the city naked, with a crier crying before them:—"Such is the
punishment of those who will not pay their tithes to their bishop." Bishops
were even found to make episcopal visitations, getting the names of all their
flock, as if with the intention of praying for them individually, and then to
hand in their names to the civil power for the purpose of taxation. Others
obtained from the Arabs the privilege of farming the revenues derived from
Christian taxation, and cruelly oppressed their coreligionists.

These nefarious measures were backed up, even if they were not instigated,
by Servandus, the Christian Count of Cordova. He was the son of a serf of
the Church, and married a cousin of Hostegesis. Instead of championing the
cause of the Christians, as his position should have impelled him to do, he
went so far in the opposite direction as to call them up before him, and try
to shake their attachment to Christianity—a religion, nominally at least, his
own also. Those who held firm he forced to pay increased taxes, and even
levied blackmail on the churches. He did not scruple to drag forth the bodies
of martyrs from under the altars of churches, and, showing them to the
king, to remind him that it had been forbidden to Christians to bury their
martyrs.

Following up the hostile measures instituted by Hostegesis against Samson

and Valentius, he proceeded to accuse them of inciting the fanatics to revile
Mohammed, urging that they should be tested with this dilemma. They
should be asked whether what the revilers said were true or not. "If they
answer, 'true,' let them be punished as well as the reviler; if 'false,' bid them
slay the man themselves; refusing which, you will know that they have aided
and abetted him to abuse your Prophet. In that case, give me permission,
and I will slay the three myself." 128

128
This same Servandus, the meanest of timeservers, seeing the Sultan's (Abdallah's) cause failing,
deserted to the rebel Omar and his Christian following, and was killed at Polei(?)—Ibn Hayyan., apud Dozy,
ii. 270. His Arab name was Sherbil, and he was beheaded at Cordova by the Arabs.—See De Gayangos' note
on Al Mak., ii. 451, 2.
 63

We have had occasion to mention one or two cases of Church, and national,
Councils held in Spain under the Arabs, and it will be worth while to
enumerate all the instances which are recorded, that we may contrast them
with those held under the Goths. It was one of the most characteristic
features of the Old Church in Spain that it was united so closely with the civil
power as almost to render the Government of Spain a theocracy. This
intimate connection of Church and State was naturally overthrown by the
Arab conquest; but the Moslem rulers, seeing how useful such institutions
as general councils were likely to be in adjusting the relations between
Mussulmans and Christians, both allowed purely ecclesiastical councils to be
called under their jurisdiction, and also summoned others in which they took
part themselves, together with Jews, to the great scandal of the stricter
Christians. 129

To the purely ecclesiastical kind belong a council held at Seville by

Elipandus 130 to condemn the errors of Migetius; and another, held by Cixila
at Toledo in 776, against the errors of Egila, bishop of Elvira. 131 Whether Egila
abjured his error is not known, but it is certain that he remained bishop.

Elipandus is also said, but on very doubtful authority, to have held a council,
whereat he renounced his own error of Adoptionism.

But the other class of councils, partly ecclesiastical and partly political, seem
to have been commoner, and we have already seen how Reccafredus,
Bishop of Seville, in conjunction with the Moslem authorities, held such a
council, in order to coerce the fanatical party among the Christians; and we
have a more particular account of another, which was held by Hostegesis,
Bishop of Malaga, and Servandus, Count of Cordova. This council seems to
have had some connection with the preceding one under Reccafredus, for
Servandus was a strong and unscrupulous opponent of the party led by
Eulogius, while Samson was their devoted supporter, though he did not
carry his opinions so far as to suffer martyrdom in his own person. Samson

129
We even find in 962 that the bishops of Toledo and Cordova had Moslem names, viz., Obeidollah ibn
Kasim (Al Makkari, ii. 162), and Akbar ibn Abdallah. Dozy, iii. 99.
130
The exact date is unknown. Fleury, ii. p. 235.
131
"Pseudo Luitprand," sec. 236, says—"Ad concilium ex omnibus Hispaniae partibus concurrunt." See also
Pope Adrian I.'s Letter to the bishops of Spain in 785. Very little is known of this Egila, nor is it certain of
what see he was the bishop.
 64

was now accused of heresy and sacrilege, as has been already mentioned.
Hostegesis forced his views on the assembled bishops by the help of the
secular arm, and a sentence of anathema and deposition was accordingly
pronounced against the unfortunate Abbot. One of the apparently
consenting bishops was Valentius, Bishop of Cordova, but his judgement
had evidently been coerced, for after the close of the council he sounded
the other consenting bishops, and some who had not attended, as to their
opinions, and found that most of them were ready to affirm Samson's
orthodoxy, and a memorial was drawn up to that effect This action of
Valentius' brought upon him also a sentence of deposition, and he was
succeeded by Stephanus Flaccus,—the election of the latter being quite
informal, as no metropolitan assisted thereat, and neither the clergy nor
laymen of his diocese made a petition in his favour.

This fresh deposition was formally sanctioned by a new council, held at the
church of St Acislus; Flaccus, and some of those who had sided with
Valentius, but were now terrified into submission, being in attendance;
while the places of those who refused to come were taken by Jews and
Moslems. These high-handed proceedings nearly led to an open rupture in
the Church.

In 914 a council is said to have been held (but on doubtful authority) by

Orontius of Toledo, and twenty years later by Basilius of Cordova. These
would fall under the reign of the greatest of the Umeyyade Khalifs of Spain.
 65

CHAPTER 7. SPAIN UNDER ABDURRAHMAN III

Abdurrahman III., Annasir Lidinillah (912-961), may be looked upon as the

Solomon of the Spanish Sultans. Succeeding to the throne when quite a
youth, to the exclusion of his uncles, the sons of the late Sultan, he found
the country torn by innumerable factions, and the king's power openly
defied by rebels, Arab, Berber, and Christian. In person, and through his
generals, he put down all these rebels, and though not uniformly successful
against the Christians in the North, yet he defeated them in a series of great
engagements. 132 He welded all the discordant elements under his rule into
one great whole, thereby giving the Arab domination in Spain another lease
of life. In 929 he took the title of Amir al Mumenin, or Commander of the
Faithful. His alliance was sought by the Emperor of the East, 133 and he
treated on equal terms with the Emperor of Germany and the King of
France. To this great king, with more truth than to his namesake
Abdurrahman II., may be applied the words of Miss Yonge:—

"He was of that type of Eastern monarch, that seems moulded on the
character of Solomon—large-hearted, wise, magnificent, tolerant, and
peaceful. He was as great a contrast to the stern, ascetic, narrow-minded,
but earnest Alfonso or Ramiro, as were the exquisite horse-shoe arches,
filagree stonework lattices, inlaid jewellery of marble pavements, and
slender minarets, to their dark vault-like, low-browed churches, and solid
castles built out of hard unmanageable granite."

We find in this king none of that suspicious jealousy which we saw in

Mohammed, even though Omar, the arch rebel, and Christian renegade, still
held out at Bobastro, when he ascended the throne; and his treatment of
Christians was, throughout his reign, tolerant and politic.

But his claims in this respect will be best seen from a very interesting
fragment that has come down to our own times, describing the embassy of

132
Mutonia (918); Calaborra; Vale de Junqueras (921).
133
A very interesting account of this embassy from Constantine VII. (947) is given in Al Makkari, ii. 137, from
Ibn Khaldun.—-See Conde, i. 442.
 66

a certain John of Gorz, a monk from an abbey near Metz, who carried letters
from Otho, emperor of Germany, to the Spanish Sultan.

In 950 Abdurrahman had sent an embassy to the emperor. A bishop who

had been at the head of this embassy died, and this seems to have caused a
delay in the answer. As the Khalif's letter contained blasphemies against
Christ, it was determined to write a reply in the king's name, such as might
perhaps convince Abdurrahman of the error of his ways. A certain bishop,
Adalbero, was appointed to be at the head of the return embassy, and he
asks the abbot of the monastery of Gorz to give him two assistants. Two are
chosen, but one of these quarrels with his superior, and is expelled from the
body; whereupon John offers himself as a substitute. The abbot only gives
his consent to John's going with great reluctance, knowing that the young
monk had an ardent longing to be a martyr, if he could only get the
opportunity.

Going through Lyons, and by ship to Barcelona, the ambassadors reached

the frontier town, Tortosa, and at last got to Cordova, where they were
assigned a house two miles from the palace, and, though well entertained,
were informed, to their dismay, that, as the Moorish ambassadors had been
made to wait three years for an answer, Otho's messengers would have to
wait nine years. Moreover, they now discovered that the king had been
already apprised of the contents of the letter, which Otho had sent, by a
comrade of the late ambassador-bishop, whom John and his companions
had taken with them to Barcelona.

The king employs Hasdai, a Jew, as his go-between; who warns them not to
divulge the contents of the letter, as it would make them liable to
punishment; for the letter contained what Moslems would consider
blasphemy against their Prophet. Soon after this John, the Bishop of
Cordova, is sent to them to suggest that they should carry their gifts to the
king, and say nothing of the letter. But John of Gorz stoutly refused to do
this, saying that the delivery of the letter was his chief duty, and that as
Abdurrahman had begun by reviling Christ, he must not be surprised at
Otho's retaliating against Mohammed. However, John of Cordova begs him
to remember the position in which the Christians stood, viz., under Pagan
rule. "We are forbidden," he said, "by the apostle to resist the powers that
 67

be. In our calamity, we have this one consolation, we are allowed to observe
our own laws and rites, and our rulers, if they see us diligent in our religion,
honour us, cherish us, and delight in our society, while they abhor the Jews.
As our religion, then, suffers no harm at their hands, let us obey the
Moslems in other things." The bishop was anxious, therefore, that the letter
should be suppressed, as calculated to do harm to the Christian community,
and no good to Otho. His advice, however, fell on deaf ears. The monk of
Gorz was resolved on doing what he deemed his plain duty; nor was he
content to forego his chance of martyrdom, though his action might entail
disastrous consequences on the Christians subject to the Moors. He taunted
the bishop with giving his advice from a fear of man. "Better die of hunger
than eat the salt of unbelievers;" and expressed horror at the fact that the
bishop was circumcised, and also abstained from certain meats in deference
to Moslem scruples. It was in vain that the bishop pointed out that
otherwise they could not live with the Saracens.

John of Gorz now expressed his intention of delivering the letter forthwith;
but the king denied the ambassadors an audience, leaving them to
themselves for six or seven weeks. Early in 955, however, the king sent to
them, and asked if they held firm to their previous resolve, and on receiving
an answer in the affirmative, he threatened all the Christians in his
dominions with loss of privileges and even death. John of Gorz merely
answers that the guilt would be on the king's head; but the latter is
persuaded to milder counsels by his advisers, who remind him of Otho's
power, and the certainty that he would interfere in favour of his
ambassadors.

John of Gorz now proposes the only practicable course, that Abdurrahman
should send a fresh embassy to Otho and ask for instructions for his
ambassadors under the circumstances. Recemundus, 134 a Christian, offers to
go as ambassador, if a vacant bishopric be given him as a reward. He sets
out and reaches Gorz in February 956. Otho gives him a fresh letter, with
instructions to suppress the former one, to conclude an alliance with the

134
De Gayangos, on Al Makkari, ii. p. 464, identifies him with Rabi, a bishop mentioned as an ambassador of
Abdurrahman III. in Al Makkari, i. 236, ii. 139; but Rabi may have been the bishop who died during the
embassy to Otho. Recemundus, as De Gayangos (1.1.) says, was a katib or clerk of the palace.
 68

Sultan, and make an arrangement with him for putting down the brigands
who infested the marches.

Leaving Gorz with Dudo, the emperor's legate, on March 30, he reached
Cordova on June 1st, but the Sultan declined to receive the second comers
till he had received the earlier embassy. So, after three years semi-captivity,
John is released, and told to prepare himself for the king's presence by
shaving, washing, and putting on new apparel. He declines to go in any
otherwise than he is; and even when the king, thinking his refusal due to
poverty, sends him a sum of money, the monk accepts the gift and
distributes it to the poor, but says he will only see the king as a poor monk.
The king good-naturedly said: "Let him come as he likes." On June 21, 956,
the ambassadors were conducted to the king's presence along a road
thronged with sight-seers. The steps of the palace were laid down with
tapestry, and a guard of honour lined both sides of the approach. On John's
entrance, the king, as a great mark of distinction, gave him his open palm to
kiss, and beckoned him to a seat near his own couch. After a silence
Abdurrahman apologised to the monk for the long delay which he had been
obliged to impose on the embassy, and which was in no sense due to
disrespect for John himself, whose virtue and wisdom he could not but
acknowledge. As a proof that this was no mere empty compliment, the king
expressed his readiness to give him whatever he asked. John's wrath
vanishes at these gracious words, and they talk amicably together. But
when the monk asks leave to depart Abdurrahman says:—"After waiting so
long to see one another, shall we part so soon?" He suggests that they
should have at least three interviews. At their next meeting they discourse
on the respective power of the empires of Otho and the Khalif himself; and
the Sultan, taught by the experience of Spain, points out the unwisdom of
allowing feudal subjects to become too powerful, by dividing kingdoms
between them.

So ends this unique and interesting fragment, which throws so pleasant a

light on the character and the Court of the greatest of Spanish Sultans, and
proves that the Christians at that time enjoyed considerable freedom, and
even honour, at the hands of the Moslem Government.
 69

The reason why the king was unwilling to receive the first letter brought by
John was not so much because he was reluctant to read words against
Mohammed, as because he would by so doing render himself liable to the
penalty of death, which was ordained by law to any Moslem—king or
slave—who listened to abuse of the Prophet without exacting summary
vengeance from the blasphemer. But—and here was the king's dilemma—
he could not punish the ambassadors without incurring the enmity of Otho.
The only possible alternative was that suggested by John, that Otho should
be asked to withdraw the objectionable letter, without the Sultan having
officially read it, and this Abdurrahman adopted. The moderation of the king
is conspicuous throughout, for we must regard the threat against the
Christians as merely a threat, never really intended to be put into execution.

In showing tolerance towards their Christian subjects, the Spanish khalifs

might be thought to have forgotten the traditions of Islam; but, as a matter
of fact, Mohammed seems to have been very inconsistent in his views with
regard to Christians and Jews at different times of his career, and while he
enjoined the necessity of Holy Wars, 135 he permitted the people of the book
to be admitted to tribute. In one passage he even seems to allow the
possibility of salvation to Jews, Christians, and Sabians: "Verily they who
believe, and those who Judaize, and the Sabians, and the Christians—
whoever of these believeth in God and the last day, and doeth that which is
right—there shall come no fear on them, neither shall they be grieved." And
there is one remarkable text to find in the mouth of Mohammed, "Let there
be no violence in religion."

Moreover, some of the best Mohammedan rulers that have ever lived
upheld the same principle of toleration. Abbas II., one of the Persian Sufis, is
reported to have said: "It is for God, not for me, to judge of men's
consciences, and I will never interfere with what belongs to the tribunal of
the great Creator and Lord of the Universe." Again, Akbar, one of the
greatest kings that ever lived, followed in practice the principle thus
expressed by his minister, Abul Fazl: "Persecution after all defeats its own

135
Tradition attributes even stronger approval of Holy Wars to Mohammed than can be found in the
Koran,—e.g., "The sword is the key of Paradise and Hell. A drop of blood shed in the cause of God, a night
spent in arms, are of more avail than two months of fasting and prayer. Whoever falls in battle against the
infidel, his sins are forgiven him."
 70

ends; it obliges men to conceal their opinions, but produces no change in

them." Noble sentiments surely, and such as we should expect from
followers of Christ rather than of Mohammed!

Yet far too often have portions of the Christian Church been conspicuous for
intolerance rather than tolerance. Alcuin, indeed, does say in his letter to
Aquila, Bishop of Winchester, that he does not approve of punishing heresy
with death, because God, by the mouth of His prophet, had said: "I have no
pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way
and live;" but Alcuin was a man of unusual mildness and sweet
reasonableness, as his letters to Felix and Elipandus testify. On the other
hand, there were too many frantic bigots in the Church, like Arnold of
Citeaux, whose impious words, in connection with the massacre of
Albigensians, are not likely to be forgotten—"Slay all; God will know His
own."

In fact, so opposed did the Christian spirit come to be to the Mohammedan

in this respect, that their toleration was made a principal argument against
the Moors by the Archbishop of Valencia in his memorial to Philip III. at the
end of the sixteenth century.

A very melancholy instance of bigotry and intolerance is afforded by

Bernard, a French monk, who was made Archbishop of Toledo by Alfonso,
on the capture of that city in 1085. By the treaty of capitulation certain
mosques had been expressly reserved to the Moslems, just in the same way
as certain churches had been reserved for the Christians by Musa in 712. But
Bernard, by way of showing his zeal in the cause of God, in defiance of the
king's plighted word, chose to perform mass in the chief mosque. Alfonso
was furiously angry when he heard of his archbishop's proceedings, but the
Moslems, with wonderful forbearance, seeing that the king had not
authorised Bernard's outrageous conduct, came forward of their own
accord and begged him to pardon the act, and even voluntarily surrendered
their mosque.
 71

Not only were the Christians allowed to practise their religion, but even, as
we have seen above, encouraged in it. 136 Almanzor, the champion of Islam,
allowed his Christian servants to rest on Sundays. Christians in every reign
held high posts at court 137 and throughout the land, and not only
timeserving Christians but men like Samson and Leovigild, who were known
to sympathise with the party of zealots, were employed by the king to write
letters to, and negotiate with, the neighbouring kings. This was no doubt
due to their general trustworthiness, their quickness, and their knowledge
of Arabic as well as Latin.

Among the great functionaries of state there was one who held the office of
Kitabatu-dh-dhimam, which, being interpreted, is "the office of protection."
The Christians and Jews were under his general jurisdiction, and were called
"the people of the protection." But besides this Arab "Secretary of State for
the Christians," the latter had their own counts—a relic of the Gothic
system—who, however, did not always stand up for their interests. There
were also Christian censors, but it is not known what position they held in
the State.

The young Christian cadets of noble birth were brought up at Court, and
numbers of Sclavonian Christians served in the king's bodyguard, of whom
under Hakem I. (796-822) there were 2000.

All things considered, it is a matter for surprise that these two peoples, so
unlike in race, habits, prejudices, and religion, lived so comparatively quietly
side by side in spite of a perpetual state of warfare between the Arabs and
the Christians in the North, which tended to keep alive the animosities of the
two races in that part of Spain which was under Mohammedan
rule. Moreover, the pride of race was very strong in the pure-blooded Arabs.
Thus the poet Said ibn Djoud, in a poem called the "battle of the town"
(Polei), boasts that the conquerors are of the pure race of Adnan and

136
See p. 57. Recent history affords a similar instance from the Christian side. See "Gordon in Central
Africa," p. 54—"I have made them make a mosque, and keep the Ramadhan." Ibid., p. 249, "I had the
mosque cleared out and restored for worship, and endowed the priests and crier, and had a great
ceremony at the opening of it.... They blessed me and cursed Zebehr Pasha who took the mosque from
them. To me it appears that the Mussulman worships God as well as I do, and is as acceptable, if sincere, as
any Christian."
137
Such as secretary, farmer of taxes, or even prime minister.
 72

Kahtan, without any foreign admixture; while he calls the defeated

Spaniards miscreants, followers of a false faith, sons of the pale-faces. The
haughty Arabs, in fact, were too prone to look upon all the Spaniards, both
renegades and Christians, as mere canaille.

But, in spite of this, the races to a certain extent amalgamated; and Eulogius
endeavours to prove that, but for the outbreak of fanaticism in the middle
of the ninth century, this amalgamation would have had serious results for
Christianity in Spain.

The Arabs did not disdain to seek the alliance of the free Christian States,
nor were the latter averse from doing the same, when political occasion
demanded it. As early as 798 the Walis of the frontier cities sought to make
themselves independent by what the Arab writer describes as "vile policy
and unworthy acts," i.e., by seeking the friendship of the Christian kings; and
there are many instances of these kings asking aid, even servilely, from Arab
princes.

Again, as was inevitable from the nature of the case, intermarriages were
common between the two races. The example was early set by the widow
of Roderic, the last Gothic king, marrying Abdulaziz, son of Musa. The sons
of Witiza also married Arab women, and Sarah, the daughter of one of these
princes, was the progenetrix of a noble family of Arabs, one of her
descendants being the historian, Ibn al Kuttiya, which means son of the
Gothic princess. Abdurrahman Anassir, the greatest of all the Spanish
Sultans, was the son of a Christian slave, named Maria, and the mighty
Almanzor had for grandmother the daughter of a renegade Christian. These
are some instances, but it is not necessary to dwell on what was so common
an occurrence as intermarriage between the peoples, and is forbidden
neither by the Koran, 138 nor by the Bible.

However, there is one point in this connection which deserves a more

particular notice. The intermingling of the races has been supposed to have
been facilitated in part by the yearly tribute of 100 maidens paid by the
northern kings to the earlier Arab Sultans. Modern historians mostly throw

138
Koran, v. 5:—"Ye are allowed to marry free women of those that have received the Scriptures before
you."
 73

doubt upon the story, saying that of the early historians none mention it,
and that the Arabs do not even allude to it. But if Conde is to be trusted, an
Arab writer does speak of it, as of a thing well known. In a letter of
Omar 139 ibn Alaftas Almudafar, King of Algarve, to Alfonso VI., in 1086, occur
the words:—"Do thou remember the time of Mohammed Almanzor, and
bring to thy mind those treaties wherein thy forefathers offered him the
homage even of their own daughters, and sent him those damsels in tribute
even to the land of our rule."

The maiden tribute is the subject of several ancient ballads by the Christian
Spaniards. The following are two verses from one of these:—

"For he who gives the Moorish king a hundred maids of Spain

Each year when in the season the day comes round again;
If he be not a heathen he swells the heathen's train—
'Twere better burn a kingdom than suffer such disdain!

"If the Moslems must have tribute, make men your tribute-money,
Send idle drones to tease them within their hives of honey;
For, when 'tis paid with maidens, from every maid there spring
Some five or six strong soldiers to serve the Moorish king."

Southey also says that the only old Portuguese ballad known to him was on
this subject. The evidence, then, of the ballads is strong for a fact of this
kind, telling, too, as it does, so much against the writers of the ballads. 140

As to the Christian chroniclers, it is quite true that we find no mention of this

tribute in the history of Sebastian of Salamanca and the Chronicle of
Albeldum, but there is a direct allusion to it in a document included in the
collection of Florez. "Our ancestors," says Ramiro, "the kings of the land—
we blush to record it—to free themselves from the raids of the Saracens,
consented to pay them yearly a shameful tribute of a hundred maidens
distinguished for their beauty, fifty of noble birth, and fifty from the
people." It was to put an end to this nefarious tribute that Ramiro now

139
Conde, ii. 238: Al Makkari, ii. 256, calls him Omar ibn Mohammed etc ibn Alafthas Almutawakkel, King of
Badajos.
140
Unless the ballads were written later than 1250—i.e., after Rodrigo of Toledo had made the story known
by his history.
 74

ordered a levy en masse. This, if the document is genuine (and Florez gives
no hint to the contrary), is good evidence for the fact. Many succeeding
writers mention it. Lucas of Tuy says that Ramiro was asked for the tribute
in 842. Johannes Vasaeus speaks of it, as also Alfonso, Bishop of Burgos; and
lastly, Rodrigo of Toledo says that Mauregatus (783-788), having obtained
the throne of Leon by Saracen help, agreed to send this tribute yearly.

On the whole, then, the evidence is in favour of the maiden tribute being no
myth, but of its having been regularly paid for more than fifty years. Most of
these Christian maidens probably embraced the religion of their husbands,
but in some cases they no doubt converted them to their own faith.

From different causes, some of which will be mentioned elsewhere,

conversions were frequent from one religion to the other. Motives of
worldly interest naturally caused the balance in these to fall very much
against the Christians, but as the Mohammedan power declined the
opposite was the case. Though voluntary apostasy was, and is,
unpardonable, Mohammed seems to have made allowances for those who
apostatized under compulsion; for when one of his followers, Ammar ibn
Yaser, being tortured by the Koreish, renounced his belief in God and in
Mohammed's mission, but afterwards came weeping to the Prophet,
Mohammed received him kindly, and, wiping his eyes, said: "What fault was
it of thine, if they forced thee?"
 75

CHAPTER 8. THE MUWALLADS

That the conversions from Christianity to Islam were very numerous at first
we can sufficiently gather from the fact that the new converts formed a
large and important party in the State, and almost succeeded in wresting
the government of Spain from the Arabs. The disorder and civil war which
may almost be said to have been chronic in Spain during the Arab dominion
were due to the fact that three distinct races settled in that country were
striving for the mastery, each of these races being itself divided into two
bitterly hostile factions. The Arabs were split up into the two factions of
Yemenite or Beladi Arabs, the descendants of Kahtan, and Modharites, the
Arabs of Mecca and Medina, who claimed descent from Adnan. To the latter
section belonged the reigning family of Umeyyades. The Berbers, who
looked upon themselves as the real conquerors of Spain, and whose
numbers were subsequently reinforced by fresh immigrations, were
composed of two hostile tribes of Botar and Beranis. Thirdly, there were the
Spaniards, part Christian, part Mohammedan; the latter being either
renegades themselves or the descendants of renegades. These apostates
were called by the Arabs Mosalimah, or New Moslems, and their
descendants Muwallads, 141 or those not of Arabic origin. The Christians were
either tribute-paying Christians, called Ahlu dh dhimmah; or free Christians,
under Moslem supremacy, called Ajemi; or apostates from Islam, called
Muraddin. The Muwallads, in spite of the Mohammedan doctrine of the
equality and brotherhood of Moslems, were looked down upon with the
utmost contempt by the pure-blooded Arabs. 142 Their condition was even
worse than that of the Christians, for they were, generally speaking,
excluded from lucrative posts, and from all administration of affairs—a
dangerous policy, considering that they formed a majority of the
population. 143 Stronger and more humane than the Berbers, they were

141
Pronounced Mulads, hence Mulatto. The word means "adopted."
142
Cp. "Gordon in Central Africa," p. 300. "... the only regret is that I am a Christian. Yet they would be the
first to despise me if I recanted and became a Mussulman." An Arab poet calls them "sons of slaves," Dozy,
ii. 258.
143
So Dozy, ii. p. 52. But perhaps he meant "of the Arab population."
 76

friends of order and civilization. Intellectually they were even superior to the
conquering Arabs.

The natural result of their being Spaniards by race, and Arabs by religion,
was that they sided now with one faction and now with another, and at one
time, under the weak Abdallah (888-912), were the mainstay of the Sultan
against his rebellious subjects. After breaking with the Sultan they almost
succeeded in gaining possession of the whole kingdom, and carried fire and
desolation to the very gates of Cordova.

As early as 805 the Muwallads of Cordova, incited by certain theologians,

revolted under Hakem I., but the rising was suppressed. In 814, however,
they again rose, and the rebellion being put down with great severity by the
help of the Berbers, the Cordovan Muwallads were exiled, 1500 going to
Alexandria, and 8000 to Fez. 144 But though exterminated in Cordova, the
renegades still mustered strong in Spain. At Elvira they rose in Abdallah's
reign, under a chief named Nabil, and threw off the Arab yoke; and,
previously to this, Abdurrahman ibn Merwan ibn Yunas and Sadoun had
headed similar revolts at Badajos and Merida. At Seville the Muwallad
element was specially strong, as we see from the many family names, such
as Beni Angelino, Beni Sabarico, which betray a Spanish origin. The majority
of the inhabitants embraced Islam early, and had their mosque by the
middle of the ninth century, but they retained many Spanish customs and
characteristics. When the Arabs of Seville revolted against the Sultan, the
renegade party joined the latter. At Saragoza, the Beni Kasi, descendants of
a noble Gothic family, set up an independent kindgom, waging war
indifferently with all their neighbours.

It does not come within the scope of this inquiry to trace out the history of
all the revolts made by the Arabs or Berbers against the Sultan's authority,
but the policy and position of the Muwallads and Christians are a necessary
part of our subject. The latter, though well treated on the whole, naturally
looked back with regret to the days of their own supremacy, and were ready
to intrigue with anyone able to assist them against their Arab rulers.
Accordingly we find them communicating with the kings of France; and

144
Dozy, App. B to vol. ii. Hakem was called Al rabadhi (=he of the suburb) from this.
 77

there is still extant a letter from Louis the Debonnaire to the people of
Merida, written in 826, which is as follows:— "We have heard of your
tribulation, which you suffer from the cruelty of your king Abdurrahman,
who has tried to take away your goods, and has oppressed you just as his
father Abulaz did. He, making you pay unjust taxes, which you were not
bound to pay, turned you from friends into enemies, and from obedient to
disobedient vassels, inasmuch as he infringed your liberties. But you, like
brave men, we hear, are resisting the tyrant, and we write now to condole
with you, and to exhort you to continue your resistance, and since your king
is our enemy as well as yours, let us join in opposing him.

"We purpose to send an army to the frontier next summer to wait there till
you give us the signal for action. Know then that, if you will desert him and
join us, your ancient liberties shall be secured to you, and you shall be free of
all taxes and tributes, and shall live under your own laws."

The army promised was sent under the king's son, but seems to have
effected nothing.

During the period of religious disturbance at Cordova, when the voluntary

martyrdoms became so frequent, and just at the time of Mohammed's
accession, the Christians of Toledo, encouraged, we may suppose, by their
proximity to the free Christians, revolted in favour of their coreligionists at
Cordova. No wonder then that Mohammed imagined that the outbreak of
fanaticism in Cordova was but the signal for a general mutiny of his Christian
subjects. As we have already seen, the king set out with an army against the
Toledans, who appealed to Ordono I. of Leon for help. Glad enough to get
such an opportunity for weakening the Arab government, Ordono sent a
large auxiliary force, but the Toledans and Leonnese were defeated with
great slaughter by the Sultan's troops. Within twenty years, however,
Toledo became practically independent, except for the payment of tribute.

From all this it will be clear that the Spanish part of the population, whether
Moslem or Christian, was opposed to the exclusiveness of the old Arabs,
and ready to make common cause against them. The unity of race prevailed
over the difference of creed, as it did in the case of the English Roman
Catholics in the war with Spain, and as it usually will under such
 78

circumstances. The national party were fortunate enough to find an able

leader in the person of the celebrated rebel, Omar ibn Hafsun, who came
near to wresting the sovereignty of Spain from the hands of the Umeyyades.
Omar was descended from a Count Alfonso, and his family had been
Christians till the apostasy of his grandfather Djaffar. Omar, being a wild
unmanageable youth, took up the lucrative and honourable profession of
bandit, his headquarters being at Bobastro or Bishter, a stronghold
somewhere between Archidona and Ronda, in the sierra stretching from
Granada to Gibraltar. After a brief sojourn in Africa, where his ambition was
inflamed by a prophecy announcing a great future, he returned to Spain,
and at once began business again as brigand at Bobastro with nearly 6000
men. Being captured, he was brought to Cordova, but spared on condition
of enlisting in the king's forces. But he soon escaped from Cordova, and
became chief of all the Spaniards in the South, Moslem and
Christian, 145 whose ardour he aroused by such words as these: "Too long
have you borne the yoke of the Sultan, who spoils you of your goods, and
taxes you beyond your means. Will you let yourselves be trampled on by the
Arabs, who look upon you as their slaves? It is not ambition that prompts me
to rebel, but a desire to avenge you and myself." To strengthen his cause he
made alliances at different times with the Muwallads in Elvira, Seville, and
Saragoza, and with the successful rebel, Abdurrahman ibn Merwan, in
Badajos.

Openly defying the Sultan's forces, he was only kept in check by Almundhir,
the king's son, who succeeded his father in 886. Omar was further
strengthened by the accession to his side of Sherbil, the Count of
Cordova. The death of Almundhir in 888 removed from Omar's path his only
able enemy, and, during Abdallah's weak reign, the rebel leader was virtual
king of the south and east of Spain. The district of Regio was made over to
him by the king, and Omar's lieutenant, Ibn Mastarna, was made chief of
Priejo.

145
See a description of him quoted by Stanley Lane-Poole ("Moors in Spain," p. 107) from an Arab writer:
"Woe unto thee, Cordova! when the captain with the great nose and ugly face—he who is guarded before
by Moslems, and behind by idolaters—when Ibn Hafsun comes before thy gates. Then will thine awful fate
be accomplished."
 79

This protracted war, which was really one for national independence, was
carried on year after year with varying success. At one time Omar conceived
the intention of proclaiming the Abasside Khalifs, at another he grasped at
the royal power himself; and Abdallah's empire was only saved by a
seasonable victory in 891 at Hisn Belay (or Espiel). The battle was fought on
the eve of the Passover, and the Moslems taunted their enemies with
having such a joyful feast, and so many victims to commemorate it with. This
shows that a large, perhaps the largest, part of Omar's army was Christian.
Another indication of this is found in a poem of Tarikh ibn Habib, where,
speaking of the coming destruction of Cordova, he says: "The safest place
will then be the hill of Abu Abdu, where once stood a church," meaning that
Omar's Christian soldiers would respect that sanctuary, and no other.
Indeed, it is certain that Omar himself became a Christian some time before
this battle, as his father had done before him. He took the name of Samuel,
and his daughter Argentea, as we have seen, suffered martyrdom. This
change of creed on Omar's part changed the character of the war, and gave
it more of a religious, 146 and perhaps less of a national, character, for the
Spanish Moslems fell off from him, when he became Christian and built
churches.

Towards the close of his reign Abdallah was able to assert his supremacy,
though Omar and his followers still held out. Omar himself did not die till
917, some years after Abdallah's death. The king's successor, Abdurrahman
III., was a different stamp of man from Abdallah, and the reduction of Omar
became only a question of time, though, in fact, the apostasy of Omar from
Islam had made the ultimate success of the national party very doubtful, if
not impossible. After Omar's death, his son, Djaffar, thought to recover the
support of the Spanish Moslems by embracing Islam; but he thereby lost the
confidence of the Christians, by whom he was murdered. In 928 his brother
Hafs surrendered, with Bobastro, to the Sultan, and the great rebellion was
finally extinguished.

So ended the grand struggle of the national party, first under the-direction
of the Muwallads, and then of the Christians, to shake off the Arab and

146
In 896, on the capture of Cazlona by a renegade named Ibn as Khalia, all the Christians were
massacred.—Dozy, ii. p. 327.
 80

Berber yoke. During the remainder of the tenth century the strong
administration of Abdurrahman III., Hakem II., and the great Almanzor, gave
the Christians no chance of raising the cry of "Spain for the Spanish." The
danger of a renewal of the rebellion once removed, the position of the
Christians does not seem to have been made any worse in consequence of
their late disaffection, and Abdurrahman, himself the son of a Christian
mother, treated all parties in the revolt with great leniency, even against the
wishes and advice of the more devout Moslems. Almanzor, too, made
himself respected, and even liked, by his Christian subjects, and there is no
doubt that his victories over the Christian States in the North were won very
largely with the aid of Christian soldiers. His death was the signal for the
disruption of the Spanish Khalifate, and from 1010-1031, when the khalifate
was finally extinguished, complete anarchy prevailed in Saracen Spain. The
Berbers made a determined effort to regain their ascendency, and their
forces, seconded by the Christians, succeeded in placing Suleiman on the
throne in 1013. A succession of feeble rulers, set up by the different
factions—Arab, Berber, and Slave—followed, until Hischem III. was forced
to abdicate in 1031, and the Umeyyade dynasty came to an end, after lasting
275 years. By this time the Christians in the North had gathered themselves
together for a combined advance against the Saracen provinces, never again
to retrograde, scarcely even to be checked, till in 1492 fell Granada, the last
stronghold of the Moors in Spain. 147

147
In 1630 there was not a single Moslem left in Spain.—Al Makk., i. p. 74.
 81

CHAPTER 9. CHRISTIANS AND MOSLEMS IGNORANT OF

ONE ANOTHER'S CREED

In spite of the close contact into which the Christians and Mohammedans
were brought in Spain, and the numerous conversions and frequent
intermarriages between the two sections, no thorough knowledge seems to
have existed, on either side, of the creed of the other party. Such, at least, is
the conclusion to which we are driven, on reading the only direct records
which remain on the subject among Arab and Christian writers. These on the
Christian side consist chiefly of quotations from a book on Mohammedanism
by the abbot Speraindeo in a work of his disciple, Eulogius; and some rather
incoherent denunciations of Mohammed and his religion by Alvar, another
pupil of the abbot's. In these, as might be expected, great stress is laid on
the sensuality of Mohammed's paradise, 148 and the lewdness of the Prophet
himself. As to the latter, though many of Gibbon's coarse sarcasms do not
rest on good authority, very little can be said for the Prophet. But among
other blasphemies attributed by Speraindeo to Mohammed is one of which
we find no mention in the Koran—the assertion, namely, that he would in
the next world be wedded to the Virgin Mary. John, Bishop of Seville, is
equally incorrect when, in a letter to Alvar, he alleges a promise on the part
of Mohammed that he would, like Christ, rise again from the dead; whereas
his body, being neglected by his relations, was devoured by dogs. The
Christian bishop does not hesitate to add—sepultus est in infernum—he
was buried in hell. 149

It is generally supposed that Mohammed could neither read nor write, and
this appears to have been the opinion of Alvar; but the same witness
acknowledges that the Koran was composed in such eloquent and beautiful
language that even Christians could not help reading and admiring it.

148
Ibid., secs. 23, 24. Mohammed's paradise was by no means wholly sensual.—Sale's Koran. Introd., p. 78.
149
This shows the hatred of Christians for Mohammed, whom, says Eulogius ("Mem. Sanct.," i. sec. 20), it
would be every Christian's duty to kill, were he alive on earth.
 82

On the important question of Mohammed's position with regard to

Christianity, Eulogius at least formed a correct judgment. Mohammed, he
tells us "blasphemously taught that Christ was the Word of God, and His
Spirit; a great prophet, endowed with much power from God; like Adam in
His creation, but not equal to God (the Creator); and that by reason of His
blameless life, being filled with the Holy Spirit, He showed marvellous signs
and wonders through the power of God, not working by His own Godhead,
but as a righteous Man, and an obedient servant, obtaining much power and
might from the Almighty God through prayer."

Alvar is much more unfair to Mohammed than his friend Eulogius, and he
even seems to have had a prejudiced idea that the Prophet set himself
deliberately to preach doctrines the opposite of those taught by Christ. It
would be nearer to the truth to say that the divergence between the two
codes of morals was due to the natural ignorance of an illiterate Arabian,
brought into contact only with an heretical form of Christianity, the real
doctrines of which he was therefore not likely to know.

According to Alvar, the sixth day of the week was chosen for the
Mohammedan holy day, because Christ suffered on that day. We shall
realise the absurdity of this when we consider the reverence in which
Mohammed held the very name of Christ, going so far even as to deny that
Christ Himself was crucified at all. The true reason for selecting Friday, as
alleged by Mohammed himself, was, because the work of creation ended on
that day.

Again, sensuality was preached, says Alvar, because Christ preached

chastity. But Mohammed cannot fairly be said to have preached sensuality,
though his private life in this respect was by no means pure.

Gluttony was advocated instead of fasting. A more baseless charge was

never made; for how can it be contended that Christianity enjoins fasting,
while Islam disapproves of it, in the face of such texts as Matthew ix.
14, 150 and Isaiah lviii. 6—"Is not this the fast that I have chosen? To loose the
bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed

150
Cf. also Matt. xi. 19—"The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a gluttonous man
and a wine-bibber."
 83

go free?" on the one hand; and on the other the express injunction of the
Koran:—"O true believers, a fast is ordained you, as it was ordained to those
before you ... if ye fast, it will be better for you, if ye knew it. The month of
Ramadan shall ye fast." But Alvar goes on to make a more astonishing
statement still:—"Christ ordained that men should abstain from their wives
during a fast, while Mohammed consecrated those days to carnal pleasure."
Christ surely gives us no such injunction, though St Paul does say something
of the kind. The Koran 151 explicitly says—"It is lawful for you on the night of
the fast to go in unto your wives; they are a garment unto you, and you are a
garment unto them." We even find an incident recorded by an Arabian
writer, where Yahya ibn Yahya, the famous faqui, imposed a penance of a
month's extra fast on Abdurrahman II. (822-852) for violating the Prophet's
ordinance, that wives should be abstained from during the fasting
month. Alvar, being a layman, may perhaps be supposed not to have studied
Mohammedanism critically, and that his zeal was not according to
knowledge is perhaps the best explanation of the matter. In one place he
informs us of his intention of writing a book on the Cobar, but the work, if
ever written, has not survived. Nor is this much to be regretted, if we may
judge by the wild remarks he indulges in elsewhere on this theme. In that
passage he seems to apply the obscure prophecy of Daniel to Mohammed,
forgetting that verse 37 speaks of one who "shall regard not the desire of
women," a description hardly characteristic of Mohammed. He identifies the
God Maozim (Hebr. Mauzim), which our revised version (v. 38) translates
the "God of fortresses" with the Mohammedan Cobar; 152 and the strange
god, whom he shall acknowledge, Alvar identifies with the devil which
inspired the Prophet in the guise of the angel Gabriel. All this, as the writer
himself allows, is very enigmatical.

Alvar does not scruple even to accuse the Moslems of idolatry, asserting
that the Arabian tribes worship their idol (the Caaba black stone) as they
used to do of yore, and that they set apart a holy month, Al Mozem, in
honour of this idol.

151
Chapter ii. 185. The Mohammedan fast is confined to the day time.
152
? Caaba.
 84

Finally, Mohammed is spoken of variously as the precursor of Antichrist, or

as Antichrist himself.

Let us now see how far we can gather the opinions of educated Moslems
with regard to Christian doctrine and worship. If we find these to be no less
one-sided and erroneous than the opinions of Christians as to
Mohammedanism, yet can we the more easily excuse the Moslems, for the
Koran itself, the very foundation and guide of all their religious dogmas, is
full of incorrect and inconsistent notions on the subject.

The most important of these mistakes was that the Christians worshipped a
Trinity of Deities—God, Christ, Mary. 153 The inclusion of the Virgin Mary into
this Trinity was perhaps due to the fact that worship was paid to her even at
that early date, as it certainly is among the Roman Catholics at this day. As
will have been seen from a passage quoted above, something very like
adoration was already paid to the Virgin in the churches of Spain. But the
following extract from a treatise on Religions, by Ali ibn Hazm, 154 the prime
minister of Abdurrahman V. (Dec. 1023-March 1024), will show that some
educated Moslems knew enough of the Christian creed to appreciate its
difficulties:—"We need not be astonished," says Ibn Hazm, "at the
superstition of men. Look at the Christians! They are so numerous that God
only knows their numbers. They have among them men of great
intelligence, and princes of great ability. Nevertheless they believe that
three is one, and one is three; that one of the three is the Father, another
the Son, another the Spirit; that the Father is, and is not, the Son; that a man
is, and is not, God; that the Messiah is God in every respect, and yet not the
same as God; that He who has existed from all eternity has been created.

"One of their sects, the members of which they call Jacobites, and which
number hundreds of thousands, believes even that the Creator Himself was
scourged, crucified, and put to death; so that the Universe for three days
was deprived of its Governor."

153
See Koran, v. ad fin.:—"And when God shall say unto Jesus at the last day: O Jesus, son of Mary, hast
thou said unto men, Take me and my mother for two Gods, beside God? he shall answer, Praise be unto
thee! it is not for me to say that which I ought not."
154
II. 227, apud Dozy, iii. 342. Ibn Hazm was, says Dozy, "a strict Moslem, averse to judging divine questions
by human reasoning."
 85

Another extract from an Arabic writer will show us what the Moslems
thought of the worship of St James, the patron saint of Spain, round whose
shrine rallied the religious revival in the north of the Peninsula. It is Ibn
Hayyan, who, in his account of Almanzor's fiftieth expedition against the
Christians, says:—"Shant Yakoh (Santiago) 155 is one of the sanctuaries most
frequented, not only by the Christians of Andalus, but of the neighbouring
continent, who look upon its church with a veneration such as Moslems
entertain for the Caaba of Mecca; for their Caaba is a colossal idol (statue)
which stands in the middle of the church. They swear by it, and repair to it in
pilgrimage from the most distant parts, from Rome, as well as other
countries beyond Rome, pretending that the tomb to be seen in the church
is that of Yakob (James), one of the twelve apostles, and the most beloved
by Isa (Jesus).—May the blessing of God be on him, and on our Prophet!—
The Christians call this Yakob the brother of Jesus, because, while he lived,
he was always with him. They say that he was Bishop of Jerusalem, and that
he wandered over the earth preaching the religion [of Christ], and calling
upon the inhabitants to embrace it, till he came to that remote corner of
Andalus; that he then returned to Syria, where he died at the age of 120
solar years. They pretend likewise that, after the death of Yakob, his
disciples carried his body and buried it in that church, as the most remote
part, where he had left traces [of his preaching]."

In a country where literature and the arts were so keenly cultivated, as they
were in Spain during the time of Arab domination, and where the rivalry of
Christian, Jew, and Moslem produced a sustained period of intellectual
activity such as the world has rarely seen, controversial theology could not
fail to have been largely developed. But the books, if any were written, from
the Christian or Moslem standpoint, have all perished, and we have only
such slight and unsatisfactory notices left to us as those already quoted.

In estimating, therefore, what influences the rival religions of Spain had

upon each other, we are driven to draw such inferences as we can from the
meagre hints furnished to us by the writers of the period; from our
knowledge of what Christianity was in Spain, and Mohammedanism in
Africa, before they were brought into contact in Andalusia, compared with

155
Miss Yonge, p. 87, says the Arabs called him Sham Yakub, but what authority has this statement?
 86

what they became after that contact had made itself felt; and from the
observed effects of such relations elsewhere. Upon a careful consideration
of these scattered hints we shall see that certain effects were visible, which,
had the amalgamation of the two peoples been allowed to continue
uninterruptedly for a longer period, and had there been no disturbing
element in the north of Spain and in Africa, would in all probability have led
to some marked modification in one or both religions, and even to their
nearer assimilation.
 87

CHAPTER 10. HERESIES IN SPAIN

Such mixtures of religions are by no means without example in history. The

Sabians, for instance, were the followers of a religion, which may have been
a cross between Judaism, Christianity, and Magianism. 156 But
Mohammedanism itself has furnished the most marked instances of such
amalgamation. In Persia Islam combined with the creed of Zoroaster to
produce Babyism; while in India Hinduism and Mohammedanism, fused
together by the genius of Nanak Guru, have resulted in Sikhism.

It may be said that Mohammedanism has been able to unite with

Zoroastrianism and Hinduism owing to their very dissimilarity with itself,
whereas Christianity is too near akin to Islam to combine with it in such a
way as to produce a religion like both, and yet different from
either. 157 Christianity and Mohammedanism, each have two cardinal
doctrines (and two only) which cannot be abrogated if they are to remain
distinctive creeds. In one of these, the unity of God, they agree. In the other
they do, and always must, differ. The divinity of Christ on the one side, and
the divine mission of Mohammed on the other, are totally incompatible
doctrines. If the one is true, the other cannot be so. Surrender both, and the
result is Judaism. No compromise would seem possible. Yet a compromise
was attempted, if we can credit a statement attributed by Dozy to Ibn
Khaldun, 158 in recounting the history of the successful rebel, Abdurrahman
ibn Merwan ibn Yunas, who during the last quarter of the ninth century,
while all Moslem Spain was a prey to the wildest anarchy, became a leader
of the renegade or Muwallad party in Merida and the neighbourhood.
Thinking to unite the Muwallads and Christians in one revolt, he preached to
his countrymen a new religion, which held a place halfway between
Christianity and Islam. This is all we are told of an endeavour, which might

156
For an attempted compromise between Christianity and Brahmanism, see the proceedings of Beschi, a
Roman Catholic priest, "Education and Missions," p. 14.
157
Cp., however, the Druse religion.
158
Dozy, ii. 184. Dozy adds that Abdurrahman was called the Galician (el Jaliki) in consequence of this
attempt of his: but there is some error here, as Ibn Hayyan (see Al Makkari, ii. 439, and De Gayangos' note)
says he was called ibn ul'jaliki, i.e., of the stock of the Galicians.
 88

have led to the most important consequences. That we hear no more of it is

evidence enough that the attempt proved abortive. The only other attempt,
if it can be called so, to combine Islam and Christianity has resulted in that
curious compound called the religion of the Druses.

But though no religion, holding a position midway between Islam and

Christianity, arose in Spain, yet those religions could hardly fail to undergo
considerable modifications in themselves by reason of their close contact
for several centuries.

In respect to Christianity we shall naturally find the traces (if any) of such
modification in the so-called heresies which may have arisen in Spain during
this period. These will require a somewhat strict examination to be made to
yield up their secret.

The Church of Spain seems to have gained a reputation for introducing

innovations into the doctrines and practices of the true faith, and even of
priding itself on its ingenuity in this way. The very first Council whose acts
have come down to us, held at Elvira in Spain, early in the fourth century,
contains a canon censuring the use of pictures. The very first heretics, who
were punished for their error with death by the hands of their fellow-
Christians, were reared in the bosom of the Spanish Church. The doctrine,
novel then, but accepted now by all the Western Churches, of the
Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son as well as from the Father, was
first formulated in a Spanish Council at the end of the sixth century, but not
universally received in the West until 600 years later. 159 And as we have
seen, the use of pictures was denounced long before the times of the
Iconoclasts.

We will now take in order the several heresies that made themselves
noticeable in Spain, or Gothic Gaul, during the Arab supremacy, and see if
we can trace any relation between them and the Moslem faith.

To take an unimportant one first, a heresy is mentioned as having arisen in

Septimania (Gothic Gaul), presumably during the eighth century. 160 It was

159
Lateran Council, 1215.
160
See, however, Alcuin's letter to the clergy of the province, Ep., 71. Migne, vol. ci. p. 1594.
 89

more practical than speculative, and consisted in a denial of the need of

confession to a priest, on the (unimpeachable) ground that men ought to
confess to God alone. This appears to us Protestants a wholly laudable and
reasonable contention; but not so to the worthy abbé who records it: cette
doctrine, si favorable à libertinage, trouva un grand nombre de partisans, et
excite encore le zèle d'Alcuin.

That this error was due in any sense to the influence of the Arabs in the
neighbouring territories of Spain, it is of course impossible to affirm, but at
all events the reform was quite in the spirit of the verses of the Koran: "O ye
who have received 161 the Scripture come to a just determination between us
and you, that we worship not any except God, and associate no creature
with Him: and that the one of us take not the other for lords, beside God."
And "They take their priests and monks for their lords besides God." 162

Let us next consider an heretical view of the Trinity attributed to Migetius

(circa 750). According to the rather obscure account, which has come down
to us, he seems to have regarded the Three Persons of the Trinity, at least in
their relations with the world, as corporeal, the Father being personified in
David, the Son in Jesus, and the Holy Ghost in Paul. It is difficult to believe

161
Chap. iii. p. 39. See Sale's note: "that is, come to such terms of agreement as are indisputably consonant
to the doctrine of all the prophets and Scriptures, and therefore cannot reasonably be rejected."
162
Chap. ix. Mohammed charged the Jews and Christians with idolatry both on other grounds and because
"they paid too implicit an obedience to their priests and monks, who took upon them to pronounce what
things were lawful and what unlawful, and to dispense with the laws of God." See Sale, Ibid. Cp.—
Haughty of heart and brow the warrior came,
In look and language proud as proud might be,
Vaunting his lordship, lineage, fights, and fame,
Yet was that barefoot monk more proud than he.
And as the ivy climbs the tallest tree,
So round the loftiest soul his toils he wound;
And with his spells subdued the fierce and free.
Till ermined age and youth in arms renowned
Honouring his scourge and hair-cloth meekly kissed the ground.
And thus it chanced that valour, peerless knight,
Who ne'er to king or kaiser veiled his crest,
Victorious still in bull-feast or in fight,
Since first with mail his limbs he did invest,
Stooped ever to that anchoret's behest;
Nor reasoned of the right, nor of the wrong,
But at his bidding laid the lance in rest,
And wrought fell deeds the troubled world along,
For he was fierce as brave, and pitiless as strong.
—SCOTT'S "Don Roderick," xxix. xxx.
 90

that the doctrine, thus crudely stated by Elipandus, was really held by
anyone. We may perhaps infer that Migetius revived the error of Priscillian
(itself a form of Sabellianism), and reducing the Three Persons of the Trinity
to one, acknowledged certain ένεργειαι or powers, emanating from Him,
which were manifested in David, Jesus, Paul respectively. As the first and
last of these three recipients of the Divine powers were confessedly men, it
follows that Migetius was ready to strip Jesus of that Divinity, which is the
cardinal doctrine of Christianity, and which more than any other doctrine
distinguishes it from the creed of Mohammed. Accordingly he appears to
have actually denied the divinity of the Word, and in this he made an
approach to Mohammedanism. 163

A similar, but seemingly not identical, error was propagated by those who,
as we learn from a letter of Alvar to Speraindeo, did not believe the Three in
One and One in Three, "denying the utterances of the prophets, rejecting
the doctrine of learned men, and, while they claimed to take their stand
upon the Gospel, pointing to texts like John xx. 17, 'I ascend unto my Father,
and your Father, unto my God and your God,' to prove that Christ was
merely man." 164 In his answer to Alvar's letter, Speraindeo says, "If we speak
of the Trinity as one Person, we Judaize;" he might have added, "and
Mohammedanize." These heretics, according to the abbot, spoke of three
powers (virtutes) forming one Person, not, as the orthodox held, three
Persons forming one God. 165 Here we see a close resemblance to the error
mentioned in the preceding paragraph; but the heretics we are now dealing
with make an even closer approach to the teaching of Mohammed in their
quotation of John xx. 17 given above, as will be seen, if we compare with
that text the following passages of the Koran, put into the mouth of Christ:
"Verily, God is my Lord, and your Lord; therefore serve him:" "They are
surely infidels who say, verily, God is Christ, the Son of Mary, since Christ

163
Neander, v. 216, n., says, Migetius held that the Λογος became personal with the assumption of Christ's
humanity; that the Λογος was the power constituting the personality of Christ. Hence, says Neander, he
was accused of asserting that Christ, the son of David according to the flesh, and not Christ, the Son of
God, was the Second Person of the Trinity.
164
Alvar's letter. Florez, xi. 147. Another text quoted in defence of this doctrine of Agnoetism was Matt.
xxiv. 36: "Of that day and that hour knoweth no man; no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only." In
answer to this, Speraindeo refers to Gen. iii. 9, where God the Father seems not to know where Adam is.
165
Speraindeo's illustration of the Trinity cannot be called a happy one. He likens it to a king, whose power
is one, but made up of the man himself, his diadem, and his purple.
 91

said, O children of Israel, serve God, my Lord and your Lord:" and, "I have
not spoken unto them any other than what thou didst command me—
namely, worship God, my Lord and your Lord."

We come next to the famous Adoptionist heresy, the most remarkable and
original of those innovations to which Alcuin taunts the Spanish Church with
being addicted. Unfortunately we derive little of our knowledge of the new
doctrine from the originators and supporters of it—our information on the
subject coming chiefly from passages quoted by their opponents (notably
our own Alcuin) in controversial works. But that the heresy had an
important connection with the Mohammedan religion has been the opinion
of many eminent writers on Church history. Mariana, the Spanish historian,
and Baronius, the apologist for the Roman Church, held that the object of
the new heresiarchs was, "by lowering the character of Christ, to pave the
way for a union between Christians and Mohammedans." Enhueber, also, in
his treatise on this subject, quotes a tract, "De Primatu Ecclesiae Toletanae,"
which attributes the heresy to its author, Elipandus, being brought into so
close a contact with the Saracens, and living on such friendly terms with
them.

Neander thinks that there are some grounds for supposing that Felix, one of
the authors of the heresy, had been employed in defending Christianity
against objections brought against it from the Moslem standpoint, 166 and in
proving the divinity of Christ, so that they might be induced to accept it.
Felix, therefore, may have been led to embrace this particular doctrine,
called Adoptionism, from a wish to bring the Christian view of Christ nearer
to the Mohammedan opinion.

There is considerable doubt as to who first broached the new theory, the
evidence being of a conflicting character, and pointing now to Elipandus,
bishop of Toledo and primate of all Spain, now to Felix, bishop of Urgel, in
Catalonia. 167

166
This perhaps refers to a "disputatio cum sacerdote" which the Emperor Charles the Great had heard of
as written by Felix. Alcuin (see "Ep.," 85) knows nothing of it. In his letter to Charles, Alcuin, speaking of a
letter from Felix, says: "Inveni peiores errores, quam ante in eius scriptis legerem."
167
The prevailing opinion seems to be that the new doctrine arose out of Elipandus' controversy with
Migetius.
 92

The claims of Felix are supported by Eginhard, Saxo, and Jonas of Orleans;
while Paulinus of Aquileia, in his book entitled "Sacrosyllabus," expressly
calls Elipandus the author of the baneful heresy; and Alcuin, in his letter to
Leidrad, 168 says that he is convinced that Elipandus, as he was the first in
rank, so also was the chief offender.

The evidence being inconclusive, we are driven to follow à

priori considerations, and these point to Elipandus as the author. According
to Neander, 169 he was a violent, excitable, bigoted man; and he certainly
uses some very strong language in his writings against his opponents, and
stands a good deal on his dignity as head of the Spanish Church. For
instance, speaking of his accusers, Etherius, Bishop of Osma, and Beatus, 170 a
priest of Libana, he says of the former that he wallows in the mire of all
lasciviousness; that he is totally unfit to officiate at God's altar; 171 that he is a
false prophet 172 and a heretic; and, forgetting the courtesies of controversy,
he doesn't hesitate, in another place, to call him an ass. Beatus also he
accuses of gross sensuality, and calls him that iniquitous priest of
Astorga, 173 accusing him of heresy, and giving him the title Antiphrasius,
which means that instead of being called Beatus, he should have been
named the very opposite. 174

But in spite of outbreaks like these we must beware of judging the

venerable Elipandus too hardly. Alcuin himself, in his letter to the bishop,
written, as he says, "with the pen of charity," speaks of him as most
blameless, and confesses that he has heard much of his piety and devotion,
an admission which he also makes with regard to Felix, in a letter to him. Yet

168
Alcuin, "Epist. ad Leidradum," says that the heresy arose in Cordova, and he appeals to Elipandus' letter
to Felix after the latter's recantation.
169
Neander (v. p. 217) seems to infer these qualities from his writings. An author, quoted by Enhueber
(Tract, de Primata Eccl. Tolet), describes him as "parum accurate in sacris litteris versatus."
170
Died in 798. Fleury v., p. 236.
171
"Ab altario Dei extraneus." Neander, v., p. 226, takes this to mean that he was deposed.
172
He gave the Revelation of St John a Moslem application: and prophesied the end of the world in the
near future. See letter of Beatus, book i., sec. 23—"Novissima hora est ... nunc Antichristi multi facti sunt.
Omnis spiritus qui solvit Jesum est illius Antichristi, quem audistis quoniam venit, et nunc in mundo est."
See also Alcuin's letter to the Spanish bishops.
173
"Elipandus and bishops of Spain to those of Gaul," sec. 1.
174
This practice of punning on names is very common in these writers. "Infelix Felix" is a poor witticism
which constantly occurs. So Samson says of Hostegesis that he ought to be called "hostis Jesu"; and in the
account of the Translation of the bodies of Aurelius, etc., we find Leovigild spoken of as a very "Leo
vigilans."
 93

in his book against Elipandus, he exclaims, not without a touch of bathos:

"For all the garments of wool on your shoulders, and the mitre upon your
brow, wearing which you minister to the people, for all the daily shaving of
your beard 175 ... if you renounce not these doctrines, you will be numbered
with the goats!" Another testimony (of doubtful value, however) in
Elipandus' favour is to be found in the anonymous life of Beatus, where
Elipandus is said to have succeeded Cixila in the bishopric of Toledo, because
of his reputation for learning and piety, which extended throughout Spain.

Elipandus, who boasted of having refuted and stamped out the Migetian
errors, and who also took up so independent an attitude with regard to the
See of Rome, was not the man to endure being dictated to in the matter of
what was, or what was not, sound doctrine, and, in the letter quoted above,
he scornfully remarks that he had never heard that it was the province of
the people of Libana to teach the Toledans. Here, as in the defiant attitude
taken up towards the Pope, we may perhaps see a jealousy, felt by the old
independent Church of Spain under its own primate, towards the new
Church, that was growing up in the mountains of the North, the centre of
whose religious devotion was soon to be Compostella, and its spiritual head
not the primate of Spain, but the bishop of Rome.

It is now time to explain what the actual heresy advocated by Elipandus and
Felix was. Some have held the opinion that Adoptionism was merely a
revival of the Bonosian errors, which had long taken root in Spain; 176 others,
that it was a revival of the Nestorian 177 heresy, a new phase of the
controversy between the schools of Antioch and Alexandria; or that it was
an attempt to reform Christianity, purging it from later additions. Alcuin,
however, speaks of its followers as a new sect, unknown to former
times. 178 Stated briefly, the new doctrine was that Jesus, in so far as His

175
Beards were the sign of laymen, see Alvar, "Ep.," xiii., and probably the distinction was much insisted on
because of the Moslem custom of wearing long beards. For the distinctive dress of the clergy see the same
letter of Alvar, ... "Quern staminia et lana oviuin religiosum adprobat."
176
Enhueber, Diss., sec. 25. The errors of Bonosus were condemned at Capua in 389. For their development
in Spain, see "Isidore of Seville."
177
Condemned at Ephesus, 431. For connection of Adoptionism with this, see letter of Adrian to bishops of
Spain (785?).
178
Alcuin contra Felicem, i., sec. 7. Elipandus denied that it had anything to do with other heresies. "Nos
vero anathematizamus Bonosum, qui filium Dei sine matre genitum, adoptivum fuisse adfirmat. Item
Sabellium, qui ipsum esse Patrem, quem Filium, quem et Spiritus sanctus (sic) et non ipsud, delirat.
 94

manhood was concerned, was son of God by adoption. This error had been
foreseen and condemned in advance by Cyril of Alexandria (348-386): 179 by
Hilary of Arles (429-449). 180 The Eleventh Council of Toledo had also guarded
against this same error a hundred years before this (675), affirming that
Christ the Son of God was His Son by nature, not by adoption.

It is a mistake to suppose Adoptionism to be a mere resuscitation of

Nestorianism. It agreed with the latter in repudiating the term "Mother of
God" as applied to the Virgin Mary, but it differed from it in the essential
point of acknowledging the unity of person in Christ. What Felix—and on
him devolved the chief onus of defence in the controversy—wished to make
clear, was that the predicates of Christ's two natures could not logically be
interchanged. He therefore reasoned thus: Christ in respect to His Deity is
God, and Son of God; with respect to His Manhood He is also God and Son of
God, not indeed in essence, but by being taken into union with Him,
who is in essence God, and Son of God. Therefore Christ, unless He derived
His humanity from the essence of God, must as man, and in respect of that
humanity, be Son of God only in a nuncupative sense. This relation of Jesus
the Man to God he preferred to describe by the term Adoption—a word not
found in Scripture in this connection, "but," says Felix, "implied therein, for
what is adoption in a son, if it be not election, assumption (susceptio)." The
term itself was no doubt found by Elipandus in the Gothic Liturgy; 181 and he
most likely used it at first with no thought of raising a metaphysical
discussion on so knotty a point. Being brought to task, however, for using
the word by those whom he deemed his ecclesiastical inferiors, he was led
to defend it from a natural dislike to acknowledge himself in the wrong. "We
can easily believe," says Enhueber, "that Elipandus, who appears to have

Anathematizamus Arium, qui Filium et Spiritum Sanctum creaturas esse existimat. Anathematizamus
Manichaeum qui Christum solum Deum et non hominem fuisse praedicat. Anathematizamus Antiphrasium
Beatum carnis lasciviae deditum, et onagrum Etherium, doctorem bestialem
...," etc.
179
"Lectures on the Catechism," xi. "Christ is the Son of God by nature, begotten of the Father, not by
adoption."
180
De Trinit, v., p. 7, "The Son of God is not a false God—a God by adoption, or a God by metaphor (nee
adoptivus, nec connuncupatus)."
181
"Elipand. ad Albinum," sec, 11. Adoptio assumptio (άνάληψις) occurs (a) in the Missa de coena
Domini: adoptivi hominis passio; (b) in the prayer de tertia feria Pascha: adoptionis gratia; (c) in that de
Ascensione: adoptionem carnis. The Council of Frankfurt (794) branded the authors of the liturgy as
heretics (so also did Alcuin) and as the main cause of the Saracen conquest! See Fleury, v. 243.
 95

been the chief author of the heresy at this time, fell into it at first from
ignorance and inadvertently, and did not appear openly as a heretic, till,
admonished of his error, he arrogantly and obstinately defended a position
which he had only taken up through ignorance."

Elipandus also seems to have applied to Felix for his opinion on Christ's
Sonship; and the latter, who was a man of great penetration and acuteness,
first formulated the new doctrine, stating in his answer that Christ must be
considered with regard to His Divinity as truly God and Son of God, but with
regard to His Manhood, as Son of God in name only, and by adoption.

To give an idea of the lines on which the controversy was carried on, it will
be necessary to state some of the arguments of Felix, and in certain cases
Alcuin's rejoinders. These are:—

(a.) "If Christ, as man, is not the adopted Son of God, then must His
Manhood be derived from the essence of God and consequently must be
something different from the manhood of men." To this Alcuin can only
oppose another dilemma, which, however, is more of the nature of a
quibble. "If," he says, "Christ is an adopted Son of God, and Christ is also
God, then is God the adopted Son of God?" 182 Here Alcuin confounds the
predicates of Christ's two natures—the very thing Felix protested against—
and uses the argument thus obtained against that doctrine of Felix, which
was based on this very denial of any interchange of predicates.

(b.) Christ is spoken of sometimes as Son of David, sometimes as Son of

God. One person can only have two fathers, if one of these be an adoptive
father. So is it with Christ. Alcuin answers: "As a man (body and soul) is
called the son of his father, so Christ (God and man) is called Son of
God." But to those who deny that a man's soul is derived from his father,
this argument would carry no weight.

182
Alcuin (ibid., i. sec. 13) also answers: "If Christ be the adopted Son of God, because as man, he could not
be of God's substance: then must he also be Mary's adopted son in respect to his Deity. But then Mary
cannot be the mother of God." But this Alcuin thinks an impious conclusion. Cp. also Contra Felic., vii. sec.
2.
 96

(c.) Christ stood in a position of natural dependence towards God over and
above the voluntary submission which He owed to His Father as God. 183 This
dependence Felix expresses by the term servus conditionalis, applied to
Jesus. He may have been thinking of Matt. xii. i8, "Behold my servant, whom
I have chosen;" and St Paul's Ep. to Philipp. ii. 7, "He took upon. Him the
form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men." Or perhaps he had
in his mind, if the theory of the influence of Mohammedanism is true, those
passages of the Koran which speak of Christ as a servant, as, "Christ doth
not proudly disdain to be a servant unto God," and, "Jesus is no other than a
servant."

(d.) To prove that Scripture recognises a distinction between Christ the Man
and Christ the God, Felix appeals to Luke xviii. 19, "Why callest thou Me
good? There is none good, save one, even God;" Mark xiii. 32, "Of that day,
or that hour, knoweth no one, not even the angels in heaven, neither the
Son, but the Father." Texts such as these can only be met by a reference to
other texts, such as John iii. 16, where God is said to have given His only
begotten Son to suffer death upon the Cross.

Conceiving, then, that it was logically necessary to speak of Christ the Man
as Son of God by adoption, Felix yet admits that this adoption, though the
same in kind as that which enables us to cry Abba, Father, yet was more
excellent in degree, and even perhaps specifically higher. It differed also
from man's adoption in not being entered into at baptism, since Christ's
baptism was only the point at which His adoption was outwardly made
manifest by signs of miraculous power, which continued till the resurrection.
Christ's adoption—according to Felix, was assumed at His conception, "His
humanity developing in accordance with its own laws, but in union with the
Logos." 184 It will be seen that though Felix wished to keep clear the
distinction between Christ as God, and as Man, yet he did not carry this

183
Cp. 1 Corinth, xi. 3, "The Head of Christ is God." This position of dependence was due, says Felix, "ad
ignobilitatem beatae Virginis, quae se ancillam Dei humili voce protestatur."
184
Neander (l.l.) Blunt, Art. on Adopt., puts this differently: "There were (according to Felix) two births in
our Lord's life—(a) the assumption of man at the conception; (b) the adoption of that man at baptism. Cp.
Contra Felic., iii. 16: "Qui est Secundus Adam, accepit has geminas generationes; primam quae secundum
carnem est, secundum vero spiritatem, quae per adoptionem fit, idem redemptor noster secundum
hominem complexus, in semet ipso continet, primam videlicet, quam suscepit ex virgine nascendo,
secundam vero quam initiavit in lavacro [ ] a mortuis resurgendo."
 97

separation so far as to acknowledge two persons in Christ. "The

Adoptionists acknowledged the unity of Persons, but meant by this a
juxtaposition of two distinct personal beings in such a way that the Son of
God should be recognised as the vehicle for all predicates, but not in so
close a manner as to amount to an absorption of the human personality into
the Divine Person." 185 The two natures of Christ had been asserted by the
Church against the Monophysites, and the two wills against the
Monothelites, but the Church never went on to admit the two Persons. With
regard to the contention of Felix, we are consequently driven to the
conclusion that either the personality ascribed to Christ was "a mere
abstraction, a metaphysical link joining two essentially incompatible
natures," 186 or that the dispute was only about names, and that by adopted
son Felix and the others meant nothing really different from the orthodox
doctrine. 187

The first mention of the new theory appears in a letter of Elipandus to the
Abbot Fidelis, written in 783, but it did not attract notice till a little later. The
pope Adrian, in his letter to the orthodox bishops of Spain (785), speaks of
the melancholy news of the heresy having reached him—a heresy, he
remarks, never before propounded, unless by Nestorius. Together with
Elipandus, he mentions Ascarius, 188 Bishop of Braga, whom Elipandus had
won over to his views. The new doctrine seems to have made its way quickly
over a great part of Spain, 189 while Felix propagated it with considerable
success in Septimania. The champions of the orthodox party in Spain were
Beatus and Etherius, whom we have mentioned above, and Theudula,
Bishop of Seville; while beyond its borders Alcuin, Paulinus of Aquileia, and
Agobard of Lyons, under the direction of Charles the Great and the Pope,
defended the orthodox position.

185
Blunt, article on Adopt.
186
Blunt, ibid. Cp. also Alcuin contra Felic., iv. 5, where he says that Felix, although he shrank from asserting
the dual personality of Christ, yet insisted on points which involved it.
187
So Walchius.
188
Fleury, v. 236, mentions a letter of his to Elipandus, asking the latter's opinion on some doubtful points
in the new doctrine.
189
Jonas of Orleans, in his work against Claudius, says: "Hac virulenta doctrina uterque Hispaniam magna
ex parte infecit."
 98

Felix, being bishop in a province of which Charles claimed the overlordship,

was amenable to his ecclesiastical superiors, and suffered for his opinions at
their hands; but Elipandus, living under a Mohammedan government, could
only be reached by letters or messages. He seems even to have received
something more than a mere negative support from the Arabs, if we are
right in so interpreting a passage in the letter of Beatus and Etherius. 190 But
it is hard to believe that Elipandus was on such friendly terms with the Arab
authorities; indeed, from passages in his writings, we should infer that the
opposite was rather the case. Neander suggests that it may have been a
Gothic king in Galicia who supported Elipandus, but this seems even more
unlikely than the other supposition.

The first council called to consider this question was held by the suggestion
of the Emperor and the Pope at Narbonne in 788, when the heresy was
condemned by twenty-five bishops of Gaul. 191

A similar provincial council was held by Paulinus at Friuli in 791, with the
same results. 192 But in the following year the heresy was formally
condemned at a full council held at Ratisbon, under the presidency of the
Emperor. Here Felix abjured his error, and was sent to Rome to be further
condemned by the Pope, that the whole Western Church might take action
in the matter. Felix was there induced to write a book condemning his own
errors, but in spite of this he was not restored to his see. 193 On his return,
however, to Spain, Felix relapsed into his old heresy, which he had never
really abjured. 194

In 792 Alcuin was summoned from England to come and defend the
orthodox position. He wrote at once to Felix a kindly letter, admonishing
him of his errors, and acknowledging that all his previous utterances on
theology had been sound and true. Felix answered this letter, but his reply is

190
I. sec. 13. "Et episcopus metropolitanus et princeps terrae pari certamine schismata haereticorum, unus
verbi gladio, alter virga regiminis ulciscens, de terra vestra funditus auferantur." See on this passage
Neander, v. 227, and cp. sec. 65, "haereticus tamen scripturarum non facit rationem, sed cum potentibus
saeculi ecclesiam vincere quaerit."
191
There are some doubts about this council.
192
Fleury, v. 236. Hefele dates it 796.
193
See letter of Spanish bishops to Charles, asking for Felix's restoration (794).
194
Leo III. said of him, at a council held in Rome (799): "Fugiens ad paganos consentaneos perjuratus
effectus est." See Froben, "Dissert," sec. 24; apud Migne, ci, pp. 305-336.
 99

not preserved. To the same, or following, year belongs the letter of

Elipandus and the bishops of Spain to Charles and the bishops of Gaul,
defending their doctrine, and asking for the restoration of Felix.

In 794 was held another council at Frankfurt, at which Alcuin and other
English clergy were present. Felix was summoned to attend, and heard his
heresy again condemned and anathematised, the decree to this effect being
sent to Elipandus. 195 Alcuin's book was read by Charles, and sent into
Septimania by the hands of the abbot Benedict.

The next council was held at Rome in 798 to confirm the one at Frankfurt. In
799 came out Felix's answer to Alcuin, sent by him first to Elipandus, and,
after being shewn to the Cordovan clergy, sent on to Charles. Alcuin is
charged to answer it, with Paulinus and the Pope as his coadjutors.

In the same year another council was held at Aix, where Alcuin argued for a
week with Felix, and apparently convinced him, for Felix again recanted, and
even wrote a confession of faith discarding the word adoption, but still
preserving the distinction of predicates belonging to the two
natures. Alcuin's book, after being revised by Charles, was published 800
A.D. Previously to this he had written to Elipandus, who answered in no
measured terms, accusing Alcuin, among other things, of enormous wealth.
This letter was sent through Felix, and, in answer, Alcuin wrote the book
against Elipandus, which we now have, and which was the means of
converting twenty thousand heretics in Gothic Gaul. 196 But in spite of
Emperor or Pope, of the books of Alcuin, or the anathemas of the councils,
neither Felix nor Elipandus really gave up his new doctrines, and even the
former continued to make converts. Elipandus, though very old at this time
(800 A.D.), lived ten years longer, and Felix survived him eight years; 197 and
they both died persisting in their error. 198

195
Fleury, v. 243, says there was no anathema; but Migne, xcvi. 858, gives us the canon: "Anathematizata
esto impia ac nefanda haeresis Elipandi Toletanae sedis Episcopi, et Felix (sic) Orgellitani, eorumque
sequacium."
196
Froben, sec, 82. Neander says 10,000.
197
Or perhaps six.
198
No reliance can be placed in the statement of the Pseudo-Luitprand, who, in a letter to Recemundus,
speaking of Elipandus, says: "Postquam illius erroris sui de adoptione Christi sero et vere poenituit, ad quod
manifestandum concilium (795) episcoporum ... collegit; et coram omnibus abiurato publice errore fidem
sanctae ecclesiae Romanae confessus est." These words in italics reveal a later hand. Cp. also sec. 259 and
 100

We have dealt somewhat at length with the Adoptionist heresy, both from
its interest and importance, and because, as mentioned above, there are
some reasons for thinking that it was the outcome of a wish to conciliate
Mohammedan opinion. It will be as well to recapitulate such evidence as we
have obtained on this point. But we must not expect to find the traces of
Mohammedan influence in the development, so much as in the origination,
of the theory. What we do find is slight enough, amounting to no more than
this:—

(a.) That the one point, which repelled the Mohammedan from genuine
Christianity—setting aside for a moment the transcendental mystery of the
Trinity—was the Divinity of Christ. Anything, therefore, that tended to
emphasise the humanity of Jesus, or to obscure the great fact of Christ the
Man, being Son of God, which sounded so offensive to Mohammedan ears,
would so far bring the Christian creed nearer to the Mohammedan's
acceptance, by assimilating the Christian conception of Christ, to that which
appears so often in the Koran. 199 There can be no doubt that the theory of
adoption, if carried to its logical conclusion, did contribute to this result:

(b.) That Elipandus was accused of receiving the help of the secular arm in
disseminating his heretical opinions:

(c.) That the application of the term Servant to Christ, besides being
authorised by texts from Scripture, is countenanced in two passages from
the Koran:

(d.) That Leo III., speaking of, Felix's return to Spain, and his relapse into
error, implies that it was due to his renewed contact with infidels who held
similar views:

(e.) That in a passage, quoted by Enhueber, Elipandus is said to have lost his
hold on the truth in consequence of his close intercourse with the Arabs:

Julianus. Alcuin, in a letter to Aquila, bishop of Salisbury, says that Elipandus in 800 A.D. still adhered to his
error.
199
Fifty years later Alvar ("Ind. Lum.," sec. 9), accuses certain Christians of dissembling their religion under
fear of persecution:— "Deum Christum non aperte coram eis (i.e. Saracenis) sed fugatis sermonibus
proferunt, Verbum Dei et Spiritum, ut illi asserunt, profitentes, suasque confessiones corde, quasi Deo
omnia inspiciente, servantes."
 101

(f.) That Elipandus accused Etherius of being a false prophet, that is, for
giving, as has been conjectured, a Mohammedan interpretation to the Beast
in the Revelation of St John.

Something must now be said of one more doctrine, which, though it did not
arise in Spain, nor perhaps much affected it, yet was originated by a
Spaniard, and a disciple of Felix, 200—Claudius, Bishop of Turin. Some have
seen in this doctrine, which was an offshoot of Iconoclasm, traces of
Adoptionism, a thing not unlikely in itself.

Of the relations of Claudius to the Saracens we have the direct statement of

one of his opponents, who said that the Jews praised him, and called him
the wisest among the Christians; and that he on his side highly commended
them and the Saracens. Yet his tendency seems to have been against the
Judaizing of the Church.

The great Iconoclastic reform, which arose in the East, undoubtedly

received its originating impulse from the Moslems. In 719 the Khalif
destroyed all images in Syria. His example was followed in 730 by the
Eastern Emperor, Leo the Isaurian. He is said to have been persuaded to this
measure by a man named Bezer, who had been some years in captivity
among the Saracens. 201 In 754 the great council of Constantinople
condemned images. Unfortunately neither the great patriarchates nor the
Pope were represented, and so this council never obtained-the sanction of
all Christendom; and its decrees were reversed in 787 at the Council of
Nicæa. In 790 appeared the Libri Carolini, in which we rejoice to find our
English Alcuin helping Charles the Great to make a powerful and reasonable
protest against the worship of images. In 794 this protest was upheld by the
German Council of Frankfurt. But the Pope, and his militia, the monks, made
a strenuous opposition to any reform in this quarter, and the recognition of
images became part and parcel of Roman Catholic Christianity.

Claudius was made bishop of Turin in 828. 202 Though placed over an Italian
diocese, he soon shewed the independence, which he had imbibed in the

200
Jonas of Orleans (Migne, cvi. p. 330) calls him so, and says elsewhere, "Felix resuscitur in Claudio."
201
Fleury, xl. ii. 1, says he was an apostate. See Mendham, Seventh General Council, Introd., pp. xii. xiv.
202
Neander says 814, Herzog 820.
 102

free air of Spain, where the Mohammedan supremacy had at least the
advantage of making the supremacy of the Pope impossible. Finding that
the people of his diocese paid worship to their images, Claudius set to work
to deface, burn, and abolish, all images and crosses in his bishopric. In
respect to the crosses he went further than other Iconoclasts, in which we
can perhaps trace his Adoptionist training. 203

These new views did not, as might be expected, find favour with the
Catholic party, whose cause was taken up by Theodemir, abbot of Nîmes, a
friend of Claudius', by Jonas of Orleans, and Dungal, an Irish priest. But, as in
the case of Felix, the heresiarch was more than a match for his opponents in
argument. 204

Claudius' own defence has been lost, but we gather his views from his
opponents' quotation of them.

Briefly expressed, they are as follows:—

(a.) Image-worship is really idol-worship:

(b.) If images are to be adored, much more should those living beings be
adored, whom the images represent. But we are not permitted to adore
God's works, much less may we worship the work of men:

(c.) The cross has no claim to be adored, because Jesus was fastened to it:
else must we adore other things with which Jesus was similarly connected;
virgins, for example, for Christ was nine months in a virgin's womb;
mangers, asses, ships, thorns, for with all these Jesus was connected. To
adore the cross we have never been told, but to bear it, that is to deny
ourselves. Those generally are the readiest to adore it, who are least ready
to bear it either spiritually or physically.

203
Neander, v. 119. The Spanish Christians were not free from the charge of adoring the cross, as we can
see from the answer of the Khalif Abdallah (888) when advised to leave his brother's body at Bobastro:
shall I, he said, leave my brother's body to the mercy of those who ring bells and adore the cross. Ibn
Hayyan, apud Al Makk., ii. 446.
204
Fleury, v. 398, confesses that the case of the image-worshippers rests mainly on tradition and the usage
of the Church—meaning that they can draw no support from the Bible. He might have remembered Matt.
xv. 7—"Ye make void the Word of God because of your tradition."
 103

Claudius also had very independent views on the question of papal

supremacy. Being summoned before a council, with more wisdom than
Felix, he refused to attend it, knowing that his cause would be prejudged,
and contented himself with calling the proposed assembly a congregation
of asses. He died in 839 in secure possession of his see, and with his
Iconoclastic belief unshaken.

Such were the heresies which connect themselves with Spain during the
first three hundred years of Arab domination, and which seem to have been,
in part at least, due to Mohammedan influence. One more there was, the
Albigensian heresy, which broke out one hundred and fifty years later, and
was perhaps the outcome of intercourse with the Mohammedanism of
Spain.
 104

CHAPTER 11. SOCIAL INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY

Having considered the effects of Mohammedanism on doctrinal Christianity

(there are no traces of similar effects on doctrinal Mohammedanism), it will
fall within the scope of our inquiry to estimate the extent to which those
influences were reciprocally felt by the two religions in their social and
intellectual aspects; and how far the character of a Christian or a
Mohammedan was altered by contact with a people professing a creed so
like, and yet so unlike. 205 This influence we shall find more strongly
manifested in the action of Christianity on Islam, than the reverse.

It is well known that Mohammed, though his opinion as to monks seems to

have varied 206 from time to time, is reported to have expressly declared that
he would have no monks in his religion. Abubeker, his successor,—if
Gibbon's translation may be trusted,—in his marching orders to the army,
told them to let monks and their monasteries alone. It was not long,
however, before an order of itinerant monks—the faquirs—arose among
the Moslems. In other parts of their dominions these became a recognised,
and in some ways privileged, class; but in Andalusia they did not receive
much encouragement, though they were very numerous even there. Most
of them, says the Arabian historian, were nothing more than beggars, able
but unwilling to work. This remark, however, he tells us, must not be applied
to all, "for there were among them men who, moved by sentiments of piety
and devotion, left the world and its vanities, and either retired to convents
to pass the remainder of their days among brethren of the same community,
or putting on the darwázah, and grasping the faquir's staff, went through
the country begging a scanty pittance, and moving the faithful to
compassion by their wretched and revolting appearance." That Moslem
monkeries did exist, especially in rather later times, we can gather from the

205
Mohammedanism is even called a heresy by a writer quoted by Prescott, "Ferdin. and Isab.," p. 244.
206
Kor. v. 85—"Thou shalt find those to be most inclinable to entertain friendship for the true believers
who say, We are Christians. This comes to pass, because there are priests and monks among them." Kor.
lvii. 27—"As to the monastic state (Deus loquitur), the Christians instituted the same (we did not prescribe
it for them) only out of desire to please God, yet they observed not the same as it ought truly to be
observed." See also Kor. ix. 34—"Verily many of the priests and monks devour the substance of men in
vanity, and obstruct the way of God;" and Kor. xxiii. 55.
 105

above passage and from another place, where a convent called Zawiyatu
l'Mahruk (the convent of the burnt) is mentioned. On that passage De
Gayangos has an interesting note, in which he quotes from an African writer
an account of a monastic establishment near Malaga. 207 The writer says: "I
saw on a mountain, close to this city, a convent, which was the residence of
several religious men living in community, and conversant with the
principles of Sufism: they have a superior to preside over them, and one or
more servants to attend to their wants. Their internal regulations are really
admirable; each faquir lives separately in a cell of his own, and meets his
comrades only at meals or prayers. Every morning at daybreak the servants
of the community go round to each faquir, and inquire of him what
provisions he wishes to have for his daily consumption.... They are served
with two meals a day. Their dress consists of a coarse woollen frock, two
being allowed yearly for each man—one for winter, another for summer.
Each faquir is furnished likewise with a regular allowance of sugar, soap to
wash his clothes, oil for his lamp, and a small sum of money to attend the
bath, all these articles being distributed to them every Friday.... Most of the
faquirs are bachelors, a few only being married. These live with their wives
in a separate part of the building, but are subject to the same rule, which
consists in attending the five daily prayers, sleeping at the convent, and
meeting together in a lofty-vaulted chamber, where they perform certain
devotions.... In the morning each faquir takes his Koran and reads the first
chapter, and then that of the king; and when the reading is over, a Koran,
previously divided into sections, is brought in for each man to read in turn,
until the whole is completed. On Fridays and other-festivals these faquirs are
obliged to go to the mosque in a body, preceded by their superior.... They
are often visited by guests, whom they entertain for a long time, supplying
them with food and other necessaries. The formalities observed with them
are as follows:—If a stranger present himself at the door of the convent in
the garb of a faquir, namely, with a girdle round his waist, his kneeling-mat
suspended between his shoulders, his staff in his right hand, and his drinking
vessel in his left, the porter of the convent comes up to him immediately,
and asks what country he comes from, what convent he has resided in, or
entered on the road, who was the superior of it, and other particulars, to

207
In the fourteenth century.
 106

ascertain that the visitor is not an impostor.... This convent was plentifully
endowed with rents for the support of its inmates, for besides the
considerable revenue in lands which was provided by its founder, a wealthy
citizen of Malaga, who had been governor of the city under the Almohades,
pious men are continually adding to the funds either by bequests in land or
by donations in money."

The resemblance between these faquirs and Christian monks is sufficiently

obvious, and need not be dilated upon: and though this particular convent
was established at a later time, we cannot doubt that the influence, which
produced such a modification of the very spirit of Islam, must have made
itself felt much earlier. This is apparent in the analogous case of Moslem
nuns, as a passage from an Arab writer seems to shew, 208 where it is said
that the body of the Moorish king, Gehwar (1030-1043), was followed to the
grave even by the damsels who had retired into solitude.

But over and above copying the institutions of Christianity, Islam shews
signs of having become to a certain extent pervaded with a Christian spirit.
It is easy to be mistaken in such things, but the following anecdotes are
more in keeping with the Bible than the Koran. Hischem I. (788-796) in his
last words to his son, Hakem I., said: "Consider well that all empire is in the
hand of God, who bestoweth it on whom He will, and from whom He will He
taketh it away. 209 But since God hath given to us the royal authority and
power, which is in our hands by His goodness only, let us obey His holy will,
which is no other than that we do good to all men, 210 and in especial to
those placed under our protection. See thou therefore, O my son, that thou
distribute equal justice to rich and poor, nor permit that any wrong or
oppression be committed in thy kingdom, for by injustice is the road to
perdition. Be clement, and do right to all who depend upon thee, for all are
the creatures of God."

The son was not inferior to the father, and capable, as the following story
shews, of the most Christian generosity. 211 One of the faquirs who had

208
Conde, ii. 154. Unless the writer is referring to Christian nuns.
209
Daniel, iv. 25, and Koran, ii. v. 249—"God giveth His kingdom unto whom He pleaseth;" and Koran, iii. v.
24.
210
Galatians vi. 20—"Let us do good unto all men, especially unto them that are of the household of faith."
211
It is fair to state that Hakem I. was not always so generous.
 107

rebelled against Hakem being captured and brought into the presence of
the king, did not shrink in his bigotry and hate from telling the Sultan that in
hating him he was obeying God. Hakem answered: "He who bid thee, as
thou sayest, hate me, bids me pardon thee. Go, and live in God's
protection."

Prone as the Mohammedans were to superstition, and many as are the

miracles and wonders, which are described in their histories, it must be
acknowledged that their capacity for imagining and believing in miracles
never equalled that of Christian priests in the Middle Ages. 212

We hear indeed of a vision of Mohammed appearing to Tarik, the invader of

Spain; of a miraculous spring gushing forth at the prayer of Akbar ibn
Nafir; of the marvellous cap of Omar; of the wonders that distinguished the
corpse of the murdered Hosein; of the vision shewing the tomb of Abu
Ayub; but nothing that will bear a comparison with the invention of St
James' body at Ira Flavia (Padron), nor the clumsy and unblushing forgery of
relics at Granada in the year of the Armada. Yet the following story of Baki
ibn Mokhlid, from Al Kusheyri, reminds us forcibly of similar monkish
extravagancies. A woman came to Baki, and said that, her son being a
prisoner in the hands of the Franks, she intended to sell her house and go in
search of him; but before doing so she asked his advice. Leaving her for a
moment he requested her to wait for his answer. He then went out and
prayed fervently for her son's release, and telling the mother what he had
done, dismissed her. Some time after the mother came back with her son to
thank Baki for his pious interference, which had procured her son's release.
The son then told his story:—"I was the king's slave, and used to go out
daily with my brother slaves to certain works on which we were employed.
One day, as we were going I felt all of a sudden as if my fetters were being
knocked off. I looked down to my feet, when lo! I saw the heavy irons fall
down broken on each side." The inspector naturally charged him with trying
to escape, but he denied on oath, saying that his fetters had fallen off
without his knowing how. They were then riveted on again with additional

212
See the story of Atahulphus, Bishop of Compostella, and the bull—Alfonso of Burgos, ch. 66: a man
swallowed up by the earth—Mariana, viii. 4: Sancho the Great's arm withered and restored—Ibid., c. 10: a
Sabellian heretic carried off by the devil in sight of a large congregation—Isidore of Beja, sec. 69: the
miracle of the roses (1050)—Mar. ix. 3.
 108

nails, but again fell off. The youth goes on:—"The Christians then consulted
their priests on the miraculous occurrence, and one of them came to me and
inquired whether I had a father. I said 'No, but I have a mother.' Well, then,
said the priest to the Christians, 'God, no doubt, has listened to her prayers.
Set him at liberty,'" which was immediately done. As a set-off to this there is
a remarkable instance of freedom from superstition recorded of King
Almundhir(881-2). On the occasion of an earthquake, the people being
greatly alarmed, and looking upon it as a direct interposition of God, this
enlightened prince did his best to convince them that such things were
natural phenomena, and had no relation to the good or evil that men
did, shewing that the earth trembled for Christian and Moslem alike, for the
most innocent as well as the most injurious of creatures without distinction.
They, however, refused to be convinced.

This independence of thought in Almundhir was perhaps an outcome of that

philosophic spirit which first shewed itself in Spain in the reign of this
Sultan's predecessor. The philosophizers were looked upon with horror by
the theologians, who worked upon the people, so that at times they were
ready to stone and burn the free-thinkers. 213 The works of Ibnu Massara, a
prominent member of this school, were burnt publicly at Cordova; and the
great Almanzor, though himself, like the great Caesar, indifferent to such
questions, 214 by way of gaining the support of the masses, was ready, or
pretended to be ready, to execute one of these philosophers. At length,
with feigned reluctance, he granted the man's life at the request of a
learned faqui.

Even among the Mohammedan "clergy"—if the term be allowable—there

were Sceptics and Deists, and others who followed the wild speculations of
Greek philosophy. Among the last of these, the greatest name was
Averroes, or more correctly, Abu Walid ibn Roshd (1126-1198), who besides
holding peculiar views about the human soul that would almost constitute
him a Pantheist, taught that religion was not a branch of knowledge that

213
Al Makk., i. 136, 141. They were called Zendik or heretics by the pious Moslems. See also Said of Toledo,
apud Dozy, iii. 109.
214
He was supposed to be in secret addicted to the forbidden study of Natural Science and Astrology.—Al
Makk., i. 141. Yet he let the faquis make an "index expurgatorius" of books to be burnt.—Dozy, iii. 115. His
namesake, Yakub Almansur (1184-1199), ordered all books on Logic and Philosophy to be burnt.
 109

could be systematised, but an inward personal power: that science and

religion could not be fused together. Owing to his freedom of thought he
was banished to a place near Cordova by Yusuf abu Yakub in 1196. He was
also persecuted and put into prison by Abdulmumen, son of Almansur, 215 for
studying natural philosophy. Another votary of the same forbidden science,
Ibn Habib, was put to death by the same king.

Side by side with, and in bitter hostility to, the earlier freethinkers lived the
faquis or theologians. The Andalusians originally belonged to the
Mohammedan sect of Al Auzai (711-774), whose doctrines were brought into
Spain by the Syrian Arabs of Damascus. But Hischem I., on coming to the
throne, shewed his preference for the doctrines of Malik ibn Aus, 216 and
contrived that they should supplant the dogmas of Al Auzai. It may be that
Hischem I. only shewed a leaning towards Malik's creed, without persuading
others to conform to his views, but at all events the change was fully
accomplished in the reign of his successor, Hakem I., by the instrumentality
of Yahya ibn Yahya Al Seythi, Abu Merwan Abdulmalek ibn Habib, and
Abdallah Zeyad ibn Abdurrahman Allakhmi, three notable theologians of
that reign. Yahya returned from a pilgrimage to the East in 827, and
immediately took the lead in the opposition offered to Hakem I. on the
ground of his being a lax Mussulman, but, in reality, because he would not
give the faquis enough power in the State.

In the reign of Mohammed (852) these faquis had become powerful enough
to impeach the orthodoxy of a well-known devout Mussulman, Abu
Abdurrahman ibn Mokhli, but the Sultan, with a wise discretion, as
commendable as it was rare, declared that the distinctions of the Ulema
were cavils, and that the expositions of the new traditionist "conveyed
much useful instruction, and inculcated very laudable practices."

Efforts were made from time to time to overthrow this priestly ascendency,
as notably by Ghàzali, the "Vivificator," as he was called, "of religious
knowledge." This attempt failed, and the rebel against authority was

215
Al Makk., i. 198. De Gayangos, in a note, points out that this was a mistake: for Abdulmumen was
grandfather of Yakub Almansur, and could not be the king meant here. He therefore reads, "Yakub, one of
the Beni Abdulmumen."
216
Died 780. Al Makk., i. 113, 343, ascribes the change to Hakem I.; and an author quoted, i. p. 403, ascribes
it to Abdurrahman I.
 110

excommunicated. Yet the strictly oxthodox party did not succeed in

arresting—to any appreciable extent—the progress of the decay which was
threatening to attack even the distinctive features of the Mohammedan
religion. 217 It is a slight indication of this, that the peculiar Moslem dress
gradually began to be given up, and the turban was only worn by faquis, and
even they could not induce the people to return to a habit once thought of
great importance.

But in other and more important respects we can see the disintegrating
effect which intercourse with Christians had upon the social institutions of
the Koran. 218

(a.) Wine, which is expressly forbidden by Mohammed, 219 was much drunk
throughout the country, the example being often set by the king himself.
Hakem I. seems to have been the first of these to drink the forbidden
juice. His namesake, Hakem II. (961-976), however, set his face against the
practice of drinking wine, and even gave orders for all the vines in his
kingdom to be rooted up—an edict which he recalled at the instance of his
councillors, who pointed out that it would ruin many poor families, and
would not cure the evil, as wine would be smuggled in or illicitly made of figs
or other fruit. Hakem consequently contented himself with forbidding anew
the use of spirituous liquors in the most stringent terms. Even the faquis had
taken to drinking wine, and they defended the practice by saying that the
prohibition might be disregarded by Moslems, who were engaged in a
perpetual war with infidels.

(b.) Music was much cultivated, yet a traditionary saying of Mohammed runs
thus: "To hear music is to sin against the law; to perform music is to sin
against religion; to enjoy music is to be guilty of infidelity." Abdurrahman II.
(822-852) in especial was very fond of music, and gave the great musician
Ziryab or Ali ibn Nafi a home at his Court, when the latter was driven from

217
In spite of Al Makkari's statement, i. 112, where he says that all innovations and heretical practices were
abhorred by the people. If the Khalif, he says, had countenanced any such, he would have been torn to
pieces.
218
Al Makkari, ii., App. 28. Author quoted by De Gayangos: The Moslems in the eleventh century "began to
drink wine and commit all manner of excesses. The rulers of Andalus thought of nothing else than
purchasing singing-women and slaves, listening to their music, and passing the time in revelry and mirth."
219
Kor. v. 93—"Surely wine, lots, and images are an abomination of the work of Satan ... avoid them."
 111

the East by professional jealousy. Strict Mohammedans always protested

against these violations of their law. The important sect of Hanbalites in
particular, like our own Puritans, made a crusade against these abuses. They
"caused a great commotion in the tenth century in Baghdad by entering
people's houses and spilling their wine, if they found any, and beating the
singing-girls they met with and breaking their instruments."

(c.) The wearing of silk, which had been disapproved of by Mohammed,

became quite common among the richer classes, though the majority do not
seem to have indulged themselves in this way. 220

(d.) The prohibition of sculptures, representing living creatures, was

disregarded. We find a statue, raised to Abdurrahman's wife Zahra, in the
Medinatu'l Zahra, a palace built by Abdurrahman III. in honour of his beloved
mistress. Images of animals are mentioned on the fountains, and a lion on
the aqueduct. We also hear of a statue at the gate of Cordova.

(e.) The Spanish Arabs even seem to have given up turning towards Mecca:
for what else can we infer from a fact mentioned by an Arab historian, that
Abu Obeydah was called Sahibu l'Kiblah as a distinctive nickname, because
he did so turn?

(f.) A reformer seems even to have arisen, who wished to persuade his
coreligionists to eat the flesh of sows, though not of pigs or boars. 221

There is good reason to suppose that all this relaxation of the more
unreasonable prohibitions of the Koran was due to contact with a civilised
and Christian nation, partly in subjection to the Arabs, and partly growing up
independently side by side with them. But in nothing was this shewn more
clearly than in the social enfranchisement of the Moslem women, whom it is
the very essence of Mohammed's teaching to regard rather as the goods
and chattels than as the equals of man; and also in the introduction among
the Moslems of a more Christian conception of the sacred word—Love.

220
Al Makkari, ii. p. 109. In 678 Yezid, son of Muawiyah, was objected to as a drunkard, a lover of music, and
a wearer of silk. See Ockley, p. 358. (Chandos Classics.)
221
Hamim, a Berber, in 936. He was crucified by the faquis. Conde, i. 420.
 112

Consequently we become accustomed to the strange spectacle—strange

among a Mohammedan people—of women making a mark in the society of
men, and being regarded as intellectually and socially their equals. Thus we
hear of an Arabian Sappho, Muatammud ibn Abbad Volada, daughter of
Almustakfi Billah; of Aysha, daughter of Ahmad of Cordova—"the purest,
loveliest, and most learned maiden of her day;" of Mozna, the slave and
private secretary of Abdurrahman III.

Again, contrary to the invariable practice elsewhere, women were admitted

into the mosques in Spain. This was forbidden by Mohammedan law, the
women being obliged to perform their devotions at home; "if," says Sale,
"they visit the mosques, it must be when the men are not there; for the
Moslems are of opinion that their presence inspires a different kind of
devotion from that which is requisite in a place dedicated to the service of
God." Sale also quotes from the letter of a Moor, censuring the Roman
Catholic manner of performing the mass, for the reason, among others, that
women were there. If the evidence of ballads be accepted, we shall find the
Moorish ladies appearing at festivities and dances. At tournaments they
looked on, their bright smiles heartening the knights on to do brave deeds,
and their fair hands giving the successful champion the meed of victorious
valour. Their position, in fact, as Prescott remarks, became assimilated to
that of Christian ladies.

The effect of this improvement in the social position of women could not fail
to reflect itself in the conception of love among the Spanish Arabs; and,
accordingly, we find their gross sensuality undergoing a process of
refinement, as the following extract from Said ibn Djoudi, 222 who wrote at
the close of the ninth century, will shew. Addressing his ideal mistress,
Djehama, he says:—

"O thou, to whom my prayers are given,

Compassionate and gentle be
To my poor soul, so roughly driven,
To fly from me to thee.

222
Killed, 897.
 113

"I call thy name, my vows outpouring,

I see thine eyes with tear-drops shine:
No monk, his imaged saint adoring,
Knows rapture like to mine!"

Of these words Dozy says:—"They might be those of a Provençal

troubadour. They breathe the delicateness of Christian chivalry."

This Christianising of the feeling of love is even more clearly seen in a

passage from a treatise on Love by Ali ibn Hazm, who was prime minister to
Abdurrahman V. (Dec. 1023-Mar. 1024). He calls Love a mixture of moral
affection, delicate gallantry, enthusiasm, and a calm modest beauty, full of
sweet dignity. Being the great grandson of Christian parents, perhaps some
of their inherited characteristics reappeared in him:—"Something pure,
something delicate, something spiritual which was not Arab."
 114

CHAPTER 12. INFLUENCE OF ISLAM ON CHRISTIANITY

We have so far investigated the influence of Christianity on the social and

intellectual character of Mohammedanism; let us now turn to the analogous
influence of Mohammedanism on Christianity under the same aspects. This,
as was to be expected, is by no means so marked as in the reverse case. One
striking instance, however, there is, in which such an influence was shewn,
and where we should least have thought to find it. We have indisputable
evidence that many Christians submitted to be circumcised. Whether this
was for the sake of passing themselves off on occasion as Mussulmans, or
for some other reason, we cannot be certain: but the fact remains. "Have
we not," says Alvar, "the mark of the beast, when setting at nought the
customs of the fathers, we follow the pestilent ways of the Gentiles; when,
neglecting the circumcision of the heart, which is chiefly commanded us, we
submit to the corporeal rite, which ought to be avoided for its ignominy, and
which can only be complied with at the cost of no small pain to ourselves."

Even bishops did not shrink from conforming to this Semitic rite, whether
voluntarily, or under compulsion, we cannot say; but we know that the
Mohammedan king, under whom this occurred, had at one time the
intention of forcing all his Christian subjects to be circumcised.

Another sign of an approximation made by Christians to the outward

observances of Moslems, was that some among them thought it necessary
to abstain from certain meats, 223 those, namely, forbidden by the
Mohammedan law.

A bishop, being taxed with compliance of this kind, gave as his excuse that
otherwise the Christians could not live with the Saracens. This was,
naturally, not considered a good reason by the stricter or more bigoted
party, who regarded with alarm and suspicion any tendency towards
amalgamation with Mohammedans. If we can credit certain chroniclers, a
council was even held some years before this time by Basilius, Bishop of

223
See Appendix B, p. 167; and Koran v. ad init.—" You are forbidden to eat that which dieth of itself, and
blood, and swine's flesh ... and that which hath been strangled."
 115

Cordova, for considering the best method of preventing the contamination

of the purity of the Christian faith by its contact with Mohammedanism.

Sometimes, however, the contact with Islam acted by way of contraries, and
Christian bigots, such as the monks often were, would cling to some habit or
rite of their own from a mere spirit of opposition to a reverse custom among
Moslems. Thus we know that the monks in the East became the more
passionately devoted to their image-worship, because Iconoclasm savoured
so much of Mohammedanism. In the same way, but with far more
objectionable results, the clergy in Spain did their best to impress the people
with the idea that cleanliness of apparel and person, far from being next to
godliness, was incompatible with it, and that baths were the direct invention
of the devil. Later on we know that Philip II., the husband of our Queen
Mary, had all public baths in his Spanish dominions destroyed, on the ground
that they were relics of infidelity.

Celibacy of the clergy, again, was strongly advocated as a contrast to the

polygamy of Mohammedans; and an abbot, Saulus, is mentioned with
horror as having a wife and children, one of whom afterwards succeeded
him, and also married.

One of the last acts of a Gothic king had been to enforce the marriage of the
clergy, and though this act was repealed by Fruela I. (757-768) in the North,
yet concubinage became very common among the clergy; 224 and it was
perhaps to remedy a similar state of things that Witiza wished to compel the
clergy to have lawful wives.

We have left to the last the great and interesting question of the origin of
chivalry. Though forming no part of the doctrines of Christianity or Islam,
chivalry and its influences could not with justice be wholly overlooked in a
discussion like the present. The institution known by that name arose in the
age of Charles the Great (768-814), and was therefore nearly synchronous
with the invasion of Europe by the Arabs. Its origin has been, indeed,
referred to the military service of fiefs, but all its characteristics, which were
personal and individual, such as loyalty, courtesy, munificence, point to a

224
Prescott, "Ferd. and Isab.," p. 16. From Samson, "Apol.," ii. cc. 2, 6, we learn that Christians had begun to
imitate the Moslems in having harems.
 116

racial rather than a political source, and these characteristics are found in an
eminent degree among the Arabs. "The solitary and independent spirit of
chivalry," says Hallam, "dwelling as it were upon a rock, and disdaining
injustice or falsehood from a consciousness of internal dignity, without any
calculation of the consequences, is not unlike what we sometimes read of
Arabian chiefs or American Indians."

Whatever the precise origin of chivalry may have been, there can be no
doubt that its development was largely influenced by the relative positions
of Arabs and Christians in Spain, and the perpetual war which went on
between them in that country.

Though not a religious institution at the outset, except perhaps among our
Saxon forefathers, chivalry soon became religious in character, and its
golden age of splendour was during the crusades against the Moslems of
Spain and Palestine. Spain itself may almost be called the cradle of chivalry;
and it must be allowed that even in the first flush of conquest the Arabs
shewed themselves to be truly chivalrous enemies, and clearly had nothing
to learn from Christians in that respect. The very earliest days of Moslem
triumph, saw the same chivalrous spirit displayed at the capture of
Jerusalem, forming a strange and melancholy contrast to the scene at its
recapture subsequently by the Crusaders under the heroic Godfrey de
Bouillon.

Similarly the last triumph of the Moors in Spain, at the end of the tenth
century, furnished an instance of generosity rarely paralleled. The Almohade
king, Yakub Almansur, after the great victory of Alarcos (1193), released
20,000 Christian prisoners. It cannot, however, be denied that the action
displeased many of the king's followers, who complained of it "as one of the
extravagancies proper to monarchs," and Yakub himself repented of it on
his deathbed.

In many passages of the Arabian writers we find those qualities enumerated

which ought to distinguish the Moorish knight—such as piety, courtesy,
prowess in war, the gift of eloquence, the art of poetry, skill on horseback,
and dexterity with sword, lance, and bow. Chivalry soon became a
recognised art, and we hear of a certain Yusuf ben Harun, or Abu Amar,
 117

addressing an elegant poem to Hakem II. (961-976) on its duties and

obligations; nor was it long before the Moorish kings learnt to confer
knighthood on their vassals after the Christian fashion, and we have an
instance of this in a knighthood conferred by the king of Seville in 1068.

As the ideal knight of Spanish romance was Ruy Diaz de Bivar, or the Cid, so
we may perhaps regard the historic Almanzor as the Moorish knight sans
peur et sans reproche; and though, if judged by our standards, he was by no
means sans reproche, yet many are the stories told of his magnanimity and
justice. On one occasion after a battle against the Christians, the Count of
Garcia being mortally wounded, his faithful Castilians refused to leave him,
and were hemmed in by Almanzor's men. When the latter was urged to give
the word, and have the knot of Christians put to the sword, he said: "Is it not
written? 'He who slayeth one man, not having met with violence, will be
punished like the murderer of all mankind, and he who saveth the life of one
man, shall be rewarded like the rescuer of all.' Make room, sons of Ishmael,
make way; let the Christians live and bless the name of the clement and
merciful God."

On another occasion Almanzor is asked by the Count of Lara for wedding

gifts for an enemy of the Arabs, another Christian count, and he
magnanimously sends the gifts; or we see him releasing the father of the
Infantes of Lara, on hearing of the dreadful death of his seven sons.

It must be admitted that these instances savour too much of the romantic
ballad style, but anecdotes of generosity do not gather round any but
persons who are noted for that virtue, and though the instances should be
false in letter, yet in spirit they may be eminently true. However this may be
as respects Almanzor's generosity, of his justice we have unimpeachable
evidence. The monk who wrote the "Chronicle of Silo," says that the success
of his raids on the Christian territories was due to the large pay he offered
his soldiers, and also to his extreme justice, "which virtue," says the
chronicler, "as I learned from my father's lips, Almanzor held dearer, if I may
so say, than any Christian."

In connection with chivalry there is one institution which the Christian

Spaniards seem to have borrowed from the Moors—those military orders,
 118

namely, which were so numerous in Spain. "The Rabitos, or Moslemah

knights," says Conde, 225 "in charge of the frontier, professed extraordinary
austerity of life, and devoted themselves voluntarily to the continual
exercise of arms. They were all men of high distinction; and bound
themselves by a vow to defend the frontier. They were forbidden by their
rules to fly from the enemy, it being their duty to fight and die on the spot
they held."

In any case, whether the Christian military orders were derived from the
Moorish, or the reverse, one thing is certain, that it was the Moors who
inoculated the Christians with a belief in Holy Wars, as an essential part of
their religion. 226 In this respect Christianity became Mohammedanized first
in Spain. Chivalry became identified with war against the infidel, and found
its apotheosis in St. James of Compostella, who—a poor fisherman of
Galilee—was supposed to have fought in person against the Moors at
Clavijo. 227 In the ballad we hear of Christian knights coming to engage in
fight from exactly that same belief in the efficacy and divine institution of
holy wars, as animated the Arab champions. The clergy, and even the
bishops, took up arms and fought against the enemies of their faith. Two
bishops, those of Leon and Astorga, 228 were taken prisoners at the battle of
Val de Junqueras (921). Sisenandus of Compostella was killed in battle
against the Northmen (979); and the "Chronicle of the Cid" makes repeated
mention of a right valiant prelate named Hieronymus.

Yet, in spite of all this, in spite of the fanaticism which engendered and
accompanied it, chivalry proved to be the only common ground on which
Christian and Moslem, Arab and European, could meet. It was in fact a sort
of compromise between two incompatible religions mutually accepted by
two different races. Though perhaps not a spiritual religion, it was a social
one, and served in some measure to mitigate the horrors of a war of races
and creeds. Chivalry culminated in the Crusades, and Richard I. of England
and Saladin were the Achilles and the Hector of a new Iliad.
225
Conde, ii. p. 119, note—"It seems highly probable that from these arose the military orders of Spain in
the East." Cp. Prescott, "Ferd. and Isab.," p. 122. The military orders of Spain were mostly instituted by
papal bulls in the last half of the 12th century.
226
Islam made Christianity military, Milman, "Lat. Chr.," ii. pp. 220-2. Lecky, "Hist. Eur. Moral," p. 262, ff.
227
Mohammed also imagined celestial aid in battle, see Kor. iii., ad init.
228
"Rodrigo of Toledo," iii. p. 4. Johannes Vasaeus says they were the bishops of Tuy and Salamanca.
 119

With this short discussion of the origin and value of chivalry as a

compromise between Christianity and Mohammedanism, we will now
conclude. In discussing the relations between Christianity and
Mohammedanism, we have been naturally led to compare not only the
religions but their adherents, for it is difficult to distinguish between those
who profess a creed, and the creed which they profess; but at least we may
have thus been enabled to avoid missing any point essential to the proper
elucidation of the mutual relations which existed between the two greatest
religions of the world, and the influence they had upon each other.
 120

APPENDIX

A.

THE JEWS IN SPAIN.

The persecution of the Jews by the Gothic Spaniards naturally made them
the implacable enemies of the Christians. Being a very numerous colony in
Spain—for Hadrian had transported thither many thousand families—the
Jews gave the Arabs very effective help in conquering the country, both by
betraying places to them, and garrisoning captured towns while the Arabs
went on to fresh conquests. Consequently the relations between the Jews
and Moslems were for a long time very cordial, though this cordiality wore
off in the course of time. Their numbers seem to have been considerable
under the Moslem occupation, and whole towns were set apart as Jewries.

In France the prejudice against the Jews shewed itself very strongly among
the clergy, though Louis I. and his wife Judith favoured them. They were
generally ill-treated, and their slaves were induced by the clergy to be
baptized. Thereupon they became free, as Jews were not allowed to have
Christian slaves. But it must be admitted that the Franks had reason for
disliking the Jews, as it was well known that they sold Christian children as
slaves to the Moslems of Spain.

They also seem to have been able to make some proselytes from among the
Christians, and we hear of one apostate of this kind, named Eleazar, to
whom Alvar addressed several letters under the title of "the transgressor."
This man's original name was Bodon. A Christian of German extraction, he
was brought up with a view to Holy Orders. In 838, while on his way to
Rome, he apostatised to Judaism, and opened a negotiation with the Jews
in France to sell his companions as slaves, stipulating only to keep his own
grandson. The next year he let his hair and beard grow, and went to Spain,
where he married a Jewess, compelling his grandson at the same time to
apostatise. In 845 or 847 his attitude became so hostile to the Christians in
Spain, that the latter wrote to Charles, praying him to demand Eleazar as his
 121

subject, which however does not seem to have been done. There seems
good reason to believe that Eleazar stirred up the Moslems against the
Christians, and the deaths of Prefectus and John may have been due to
him. 229 After this we hear no more of Eleazar; but the position of the Jews
with regard to the Arabs seems to have been for long after this of a most
privileged character. Consequently the Jews in Spain had such an
opportunity to develop their natural gifts as they have never had since the
capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar; and they shewed themselves no
whit behind the Arabs, if indeed they did not outstrip them, in keeping alive
the flame of learning in the dark ages. In science generally, and especially in
the art of medicine they had few rivals, and in learning and civilisation they
were, no less than the Arabs, far ahead of the Christians.

The good understanding between the Jews and the Arabs with the gradual
process of time gave place to an ill-concealed hostility, and at the beginning
of the twelfth century there seems even to have been a project formed for
forcing the Jews to become Moslems on the ground of a promise made by
their forefathers to Mohammed that, if in five centuries their Messiah had
not appeared, they would be converted to Mohammedanism. Perhaps this
was only a pretext on the part of the Moslems for extorting money; at all
events the Jews only succeeded in evading the alternative by paying a large
sum of money. Even in the early years of the conquest they were subject to
the rapacity of their rulers, for when, on the rumour of the Messiah having
appeared in Syria, many of the Spanish Jews, leaving their goods, started off
to join him, the Moslem governor, Anbasa, seized the property so left, and
refused to restore it on the return of the disappointed emigrants.

From their contact with Arabs and Christians the Jews seem to have lost
many of their distinctive beliefs, and in the twelfth century Maimonides, the
greatest name among the Spanish Jews, wrote against their errors. One of
these seems to have been that the books of Moses were written before the
Creation; another, that there was a series of hells in the next world.

Many Jews attained to very high positions among the Arabs, and we hear of
a certain Hasdai ibn Bahrut, who was inspector of customs to Abdurrahman
229
The "Ann. Bert." say that he induced Abdurrahman II. to give his Christian subjects the choice between
Islam, Judaism, or death. See Rohrbacher, xii. 4.
 122

III., ambassador to the King of Leon in 955, and the king's confidential
messenger to the monk, John of Gorz, a few years later. He was also
distinguished as a physician.

While the Arabs still retained their hold on the fairest provinces of Spain, the
lot of the Jews, even in Christian territories, was by no means unendurable.
They were sometimes advanced to important and confidential posts, and it
was the murder of Alfonso VI.'s Jewish ambassador by the King of Seville
which brought about the introduction of the Almoravides into Spain.

There is a strange story told of the Jews at the taking of Toledo by the
Christians in 1085. They waited on Alfonso and assured him that they were
part of the ten tribes whom Nebuchadnezzar transported into Spain, and
not the descendants of those Jerusalem Jews who crucified Christ. Their
ancestors, they said, were quite free from the guilt of this act, for when
Caiaphas had written to the Toledan synagogue for their advice respecting
the person who claimed to be the Messiah, the Toledan Jews returned for
answer, that in their judgment the prophecies seemed to be fulfilled in Him,
and therefore He ought not by any means to be put to death. This reply they
produced in the original Hebrew. It is needless to say that the whole thing
was a fabrication.

Gradually, as the Christians recovered their supremacy in Spain, the tide of

prejudice set more and more strongly against the Jews. They were accused
of "contempt for the Catholic worship, desecration of its symbols, sacrifice
of Christian infants," and other enormities. Severe laws were passed against
them, as in the old Gothic times, and their freedom was grievously curtailed
in the matters of dress, residence, and profession. As a distinctive badge
they had to wear yellow caps.

At the end of the fourteenth century the people rose against them, and
15,000 Jews were massacred in different parts of Spain. Many were
nominally converted, and 35,000 conversions were put to the credit of a
single saint. These new Christians sometimes attained high ecclesiastical
dignities, and intermarried with the noble families—the taint of which "mala
sangre" came afterwards to be regarded with the greatest horror and
aversion.
 123

It was against the converted Jews that the Inquisition was first established,
and they chiefly suffered under it at first. In 1492, on the final extinction of
the Arab dominion in Spain, a very large number of Jews were expelled from
Castile, 230 the evil example being afterwards followed in other parts of
Spain. The story of the treatment of Jews by Christians is indeed one of the
darkest in the history of Christianity.

B.

SPAIN AND THE PAPAL POWER.

Perhaps no part of the history of Spain affords so interesting a study as the

consideration of those gradual steps by which, from being one of the most
independent of Churches, she has become the most subservient, and
therefore the most degraded, of all. The question of how this was brought
about, apart from its intrinsic interest as illustrating the development of a
great nation, is well worth investigating, from the momentous influence
which it has had upon the religious history of the world at large. For it is not
too much to say that Rome could never have made good its ascendency,
spiritual no less than temporal, over so large a part of mankind, had not the
material resources and the blind devotion of Spain been ready to back the
haughty pretensions and unscrupulous ability of the Italian pontiffs.

In fact, Spain is the only country, apart from Italy, that as a nation, has
accepted the monstrous doctrines of Rome in all their entirety—doctrines
which the whole Christian East repudiated from the first with scorn, and
which the North and (with the exception of Spain) the West of Europe—the
birthplace and cradle of the mighty Teutonic races—have agreed with equal
disdain to reject and trample under their feet.

This result is all the more remarkable, from the fact that in early times the
Church of Spain, from its rapid extension, its greatness, and its prosperity,
held a position of complete equality with the Roman and other principal
churches. The See of Cordova held so high a rank in the fourth century that

230
Variously estimated at 160,000 or 800,000.
 124

Hosius, its venerable bishop, was chosen to preside at the important

councils of Nice (325) and Sardica (347).

The Gothic invasion at the beginning of the fifth century made Spain still less
likely to acknowledge any supremacy of Rome, for the Goths, besides being
far more independent in character than the Romanized Kelts, were Arian
heretics, and cut off, in consequence, from all communion with Rome. The
orthodox party, however, gradually gained strength, and in 560 the
remnants of the Suevi abjured Arianism, and the Gothic king's son
Ermenegild, with their help, revolted against his father. He was finally put to
death for his treason, but his brother, Recared, on ascending the throne in
589, avowed his conversion to the orthodox creed, his example being
followed by most of his nobles and prelates.

The reception of Recared and his Court into the Catholic fold was the signal
for an attempt to establish the papal authority, which was the more
dangerous now, as the popes had gained a great increase of power since
Spain was cut off from orthodox Christendom by the invasion of the Arian
Goths.

One of Recared's first acts was to write to the pope and, saluting him, ask
him for his advice in spiritual matters. The papal authority thus
acknowledged was soon exercised in—

(a.) Deciding ecclesiastical appeals without regard to the laws of the land;

(b.) Sending to Spain pontifical judges to hear such cases;

(c.) Sending legates to watch over the discipline of the Church;

(d.) Sending the pall to metropolitans.

These metropolitans, unknown in the earlier history of the Spanish Church,

came gradually to be recognised, owing to the papal practice of sending
letters to the chief bishops of the country. They became invested in
consequence with certain important powers, such as those of convoking
provincial councils; of consecrating suffragans; of holding ecclesiastical
courts, and watching over the conduct of bishops.
 125

But though a certain authority over the Spanish Church was thus conceded
to the pope, yet owing to the independent spirit of the Spanish kings and
clergy, he contented himself with a very sparing use of his power. In two
points, in especial, the claims of the pope were strenuously resisted.

(a.) The purchase of dispensations from Rome was expressly forbidden.

(b.) Papal infallibility was a dogma by no means admitted. Thus the prelates
of Spain in the fifteenth and sixteenth councils of Toledo, defended the
orthodoxy of their fellow-bishop, Julian, against the strictures of the then
pope, Bendict II.; and Benedict's successor, John V., confessed that they had
been in the right.

This spirit of opposition to the supremacy of the pope we find manifested to

the last by the Spanish kings, and there is some reason for thinking that in
the very year of the Saracen invasion the king, Witiza, held a synod, which
emphatically forbade appeals to Rome. One author even goes so far as to
say that the Gothic king and his clergy being at variance with the pope, the
latter encouraged and favoured the Saracen invasion.

However that may have been, and it certainly looks very improbable, the
invasion did not help the pope much directly, though indirectly, and as
events turned out, the Arab domination was undoubtedly the main cause of
the ultimate subjection of Spain to the papal yoke, which happened in this
way:—The Christian Church in the North being, though free, yet in a position
of great danger and weakness, would naturally have sought help from their
nearest Christian neighbours, the Franks. But the selfish and ambitious
policy of the latter, who preferred extending their temporal dominion to
fighting as champions of Christianity in defence of others, naturally forced
the Spanish Christians to look to the only Christian ruler who could afford
them even moral assistance; and the popes were not slow to avail
themselves of the opportunity thus offered for establishing their authority
in a new province. It was by the intervention of the popes that the war
against the Arabs partook of the nature of a crusade, a form of warfare
which carried with it the advantage of filling the treasury of the Bishops of
Rome. By means of indulgences, granting exemption from purgatory at 200
 126

maravedis a head, the pope collected in four years the sum of four million
maravedis.

The first important instance of the Pope's intervention being asked and
obtained was in 808, when, the body of St James being miraculously
discovered, Alfonso wrote to the pope asking leave to move the see of Ira
Flavia (Padron) to the new church of St lago, built on the spot where the
relics were found. The birth of the new Spanish Church dates from this
event, which was of ominous import for the future independence of the
Church in that country. What the claims of Rome had come to be within a
quarter of a century of this epoch, we may see from the controversy which
arose between Claudius, Bishop of Turin, and the papal party. Claudius was
himself a Spaniard, and a pupil of the celebrated Felix, Bishop of Urgel, one
of the authors of the Adoptionist heresy. Among other doctrines obnoxious
to the so-called Catholic party, Claudius stoutly resisted the papal claim to be
the head of Christendom, resting his opposition, so far as we can gather
from what remains to us of his writings, on the grounds, first, that Christ
did not say to Peter, "What thou loosest in heaven, shall be loosed upon
earth;" meaning by this that the authority vested in Peter was only to be
exercised during his life; secondly, in answer to the supposed efficacy of a
pilgrimage to Rome, Claudius retorts on his accuser, Theodomir, abbot of a
monastery near Nîmes:—"If a doing of penance to be effectual involves a
journey to Rome, why do you keep so many monks in your monastery and
prevent them from going—as you say is necessary—to Rome itself?" As to
the journey itself, Claudius said that he neither approved nor disapproved of
it, knowing that it was not prejudicial to all, nor useful to all: but this he was
assured of, that eternal life could not be gained by a mere journey to Rome;
thirdly, as to the pope being the Dominicus Apostolicus, as his supporters
called him, apostolic, says Claudius, is a title that does not belong to one
"who fills the see of an apostle, but who fulfils the duties thereof."

Being summoned to appear before a council, the bishop proved

contumacious, and refused to go, calling the proposed assemblage a
congregation of asses. In spite of his independence of spirit Claudius
remained Bishop of Turin till his death in 839.
 127

The pope's authority being once recognised in Spain, the sphere of his
interference rapidly enlarged, and we soon find the king unable even to call
a council of bishops without a papal bull. This became the established
practice. 231 In the tenth century Bermudo II. (982-999), in confirming the
laws of the Goths, took the opportunity to make the canons and decrees of
the pope binding in secular cases.

Meanwhile, even before the free Christians in the North had established
their independence, the weakness of the Christian Church under Arab
domination seemed to afford a good opportunity for obtaining from them a
recognition of the authority of the pope. We accordingly find that an appeal
was made to the pope towards the close of the eighth century to give an
authoritative decision with regard to what the appellants deemed to be
certain irregularities which had found their way into the practice of those
Christians who were under the Arab yoke. The Pope Adrian readily
undertook to define what was, and what was not, in accordance with
Christianity. In a letter addressed to the Bishops of Spain he inveighs against
the following errors, countenanced by a certain Migetius, and by Egila,
Bishop of Elvira, and sometimes called in consequence the Migetian
errors:—

(a.) The wrong celebration of Easter. This had already been noticed and
condemned by Peter, a deacon of Toledo, in a letter to the people of Seville
(750). The error was not the same as that of the Quarto-decimani, but
consisted apparently in deferring Easter to the twenty-second day, if the full
moon fell on the 14th, and the following day was Sunday. Curiously enough
this very error had been held by the Latin Church itself till the sixth
century. The fulminations of the Pope failed in suppressing the error. As late
as 891 it was sufficiently general in Andalusia to cause the date of a battle
which took place at the Easter of that year to be placed in the year of the
Hegira 278, which only began on April 15th, whereas had Easter been
observed according to the usage of the Latin Church, the Paschal feast
would have been already past.

231
"Chron. Sil.," sec. 13, who says that in 1109 a legate was in Spain holding a council at Leon. "Chron.
Sampiri," (Florez, xiv.), sec. 6 (a later addition), says that in 869 Alfonso IV. sent Severus and Sideric, asking
the leave of Pope John VIII. to hold a council and consecrate a church. Cp. Mariana, vii. 8.
 128

(b.) The eating of pork and things strangled. With respect to these innocent
articles of food, the pope goes so far as to threaten anathema against those
who will not abstain from them. It is curious to find the Christian Church
upholding the eating of pork, when brought into contact with the Moslems,
and forbidding it elsewhere.

(c.) Intermarriage with Jews and Moslems, which had become very
common, is denounced and forbidden.

(d.) The Pope cautions the Spanish Church against consecrating priests
without due preparation, and speaks as if there were many false priests,
wolves in sheep's clothing, dealing havoc in the flock.

(e.) One doubtful authority, who tells us that Adrian ordered Cixila, Bishop
of Toledo, to hold a council and condemn Egila for not fasting on Sundays,
according to the decrees of previous popes.

But though there was a strong party in Spain favouring the pretensions of
the pope, yet many of the clergy and laity, headed by the venerable
Elipandus, Bishop of Toledo (782-810), boldly resisted the encroachments of
the Bishop of Rome. Elipandus himself, as Primate of all Spain, wrote to
Migetius condemning him for certain heresies, and boasts of having
completely refuted and silenced him; but at the same time Elipandus
shewed his independence of the Roman Pontiff by characterising those who
abstained from pork and things strangled as foolish and ignorant men;
though Migetius in this matter was in thorough accord with the pope, and
could justify his views by a reference to the decision of the Church of
Jerusalem in the earliest days of Christianity.

Another doctrine combated by Elipandus was the unscriptural one, that it

was unlawful to eat with unbelievers, or even to take food touched by them.
It was easy for him to quote texts such as: "Not that which entereth into the
mouth defileth the man; but that which proceedeth out of the mouth, this
 129

defileth the man;" or "to the pure all things are pure;" 232 and to point out
that Christ ate with publicans and sinners.

But the assumption which Elipandus, like his fellow-countrymen, Claudius of

Turin, later, especially attacked, was that which regarded the Roman See as
alone constituting the Catholic Church and the power of God. This he very
properly calls a heresy; and indignantly denies that Christ's words, "Thou art
Peter," &c., apply to the Church of Rome alone, affirming that they were
spoken of the whole Church. "How," he adds, "can the Roman Church be, as
you say it is, the very power of God without spot or blemish, when we know
that at least one bishop of Rome (Liberius) has been branded as a heretic by
the common voice of Christendom."

Had the Arab domination embraced the whole of Spain, and continued to be
established over it, Spain could never have become the priest-ridden
country which it now is; but the gradual advance of the Christian arms in the
North brought in its train a more and more complete subserviency to the
pope.

As the kings of Castile and Leon gradually won back towns and provinces
from the Arabs, some difference was observed to exist between the
religious usages of the newly freed Christians and of those who had set
them free. This was specially apparent in the old Gothic liturgy, which the
Muzarabic Christians had used all along, and were still using, whereas the
Christians of Leon and the Asturias had imported a newer recension from
Rome.

Rumours of these discrepancies in religious ritual reached Rome, and

accordingly a legate, 233 named Zanclus, was sent to Spain in 925 from John
X. to inquire into matters of religion, and particularly into the ceremony of
the mass, the opinion being prevalent at Rome that the mass was
incorrectly performed according to the Gothic liturgy, and that false
doctrines were taught. However, Zanclus found that the divergence was not

232
See also letter to Alcuin, and Felix's answer to Alcuin's first book, where he gives us his idea of
a Catholic church founded on our Lord Christ (and not on the pope), ... which Catholic church may even
consist of few members. Neander, v. 230.
233
Mariana, vi. 9. Pseudo-Luit. gives the legate the name of Marinus, and says he was sent in 932 to Basilius,
Bishop of Toledo.
 130

sufficiently wide to warrant the suppression of the ancient ritual. It may be

that the power of the Roman Church was not established so securely as to
admit of an interference so unpalatable to the ancient church. She was
content to bide her time; for such a standing witness to the primitive
usage 234 of the Church against the innovations of the Roman See could not
long be allowed to continue. Accordingly, we find that very soon after the
fall of Toledo in 1085, the question of the old Gothic liturgy came up for
discussion again. The Gothic and the Roman books were subjected, after the
absurd fashion of the times, to two ordeals—by water and by fire; but in
spite of the fact that the Gothic liturgy, thanks to its greater solidity and
stronger binding, resisted both those elements incomparably better than its
younger rival, and so, if the ordeal went for anything, should have been
hailed victorious, the old native liturgy was partially suppressed at the
bidding of the pope, and by the consent of the Spanish king Alfonso VI. of
Leon, 235 and Sancho IV. of Aragon. Yet the Muzarabic Christians were loath
to give up their customary liturgy, and it remained in use in several churches
of Toledo till late in the fifteenth century.

But the interference of the pope was not confined to matters relating to the
Spanish Church at large, his heavy hand fell upon the king himself, and at the
end of the twelfth century Alfonso IX. and all his kingdom were laid under an
interdict by Celestine III. because he had married within forbidden limits,
and refused to divorce his wife at the bidding of the pope. He did in the end
divorce her, but only to repeat the same offence with a second wife,
Berengaria, and incur the same penalty at the hands of Innocent III.
Encroachments on the king's power went on apace, and gradually appeals
came to be referred to Rome from the king's courts, and the pope took
upon himself to appoint to benefices and bishoprics; a usurpation which was
countenanced by Alfonso X. (1252-1284). But this result was not attained
without remonstrances from the Cortes, and finally, under Ferdinand and
Isabella, the question came to an open rupture between the Spanish Court
and the reigning pope, Sixtus IV. Isabella, though so ready to submit herself
in matters of personal religion to the pope and his legates, refused, like her

234
Cp. the monstrous way in which the Portuguese Roman Catholics, under Don Alexis de Menezes,
destroyed the sacred books and memorials of the ancient Syrian Church on the Malabar coast in India.
235
And I. of Castile.
 131

later namesake of England, to bate one jot of her ecclesiastical rights; and
the pope had to give way, contenting himself with the barren power of
appointing those nominated by the sovereigns of the land. But if the
sovereign was jealous of his rights, no less so were the barons of theirs, and
when in the war of the barons with Henry IV. (1454-1474), the papal legate
threw his influence on to the king's side, and excommunicated the
rebellious barons, they firmly answered that "those who had advised the
pope that he had a right to interfere in the temporal concerns of Castile had
deceived him; and that they, the barons of the kingdom, had a perfect right
to depose their sovereign on sufficient grounds, and meant to exercise
it." 236

A similarly independent spirit shewed itself in Aragon. In 1213 Pedro II. died
fighting against the papal persecutor of the Albigensians, and down to the
time of Charles V., the princes of Aragon were at open enmity with the
Roman See, and the Aragonese strenuously resisted the establishment of
the Inquisition.

That fatal instrument of religious bigotry, the cause of more unmerited

suffering and more unmixed evil than any other devised by man, whereby
more innocent people passed through the fire than were perhaps ever
sacrificed at the altar of Moloch, was first put into action in September 1480,
during the reign of the pious and noble-minded Isabella. 237 The festival of
Epiphany in the following year was selected as an appropriate date for the
manifestation of the first auto da fé, when six Jews were burnt at Seville; for
it was against that unfortunate people that this inhuman persecution was
devised, or at least first used. That one year witnessed the martyrdom of
2000 persons, and the infliction on 17,000 others of punishments only less
than death itself. During the administration of Thomas of Torquemada,
which lasted eighteen years, more than 10,000 persons perished at the
stake, nearly 100,000 were, as the phrase went, reconciled. The confiscation
of property which accompanied all this burning and imprisoning brought in
enormous sums into the coffers of the Inquisitors.

236
Prescott, p. 72. Cp. the charter of Aragon, whereby the king, if he violated the charter of the realm,
might be deposed, and any other Pagan or Christian substituted. Ibid, p. 23.
237
The inquisitional code was drawn up in 1233, and introduced into Spain, 1242. Prescott.
 132

The Jews being burnt, converted, or expelled the country, the Inquisition
was turned upon the wretched Moriscoes, as the Moors under Christian
government were called, who were oppressed and persecuted in the same
way as the Jews, and finally driven from Spain.

But a more important conquest than these—more important, that is, to the
supremacy of the Roman See—was the undoubted conquest achieved by
the Inquisition over the reforming doctrines which in the sixteenth century
began to find their way into Spain from Germany and England. Finding a
congenial soil, the reformation began to spread in Spain with wonderful
rapidity. The divines sent by Charles V. into England were themselves
converted, and returned full of zeal for the Protestant faith—"Their
success," says Geddes, "was such that had not a speedy and full stop been
put to their pious labours by the merciless Inquisition, the whole kingdom of
Spain had in all likelihood been converted to the Protestant religion, in less
time than any other country had ever been before." 238 So untrue is it to say
that persecution always fails of its object! In Spain it has riveted the fetters,
which the weakness and superstition of the earlier kings of Leon and Castile,
together with the piety and misdirected enthusiasm of Isabella, placed upon
a proud and once peculiarly independent people. Plunged in the depths of
ignorance and imbecility, social, religious, and political, Spain affords a
melancholy but instructive spectacle to the nations.

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238
Geddes, Pref. to "Spanish Martyrs," p. 3, 4, quotes a Romanist author, who says: "the number of
converts was so great that had the stop which was put to that evil been delayed but two or three months
longer, I am persuaded that all Spain had been put into a flame by them."